


Hearts Don't Break Around Here

by thatawkwardfriend



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Angst, Arguing, BAMF John, Bullying, Carnival, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Fighting, Fireworks, First Dates, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Funeral, Happy Ending, Horses, Hurt/Comfort, Jim is a bully, John has strict parents, John is a crack shot, John is artistic, John saving Sherlock, Lazy Mornings, Lestrolly, M/M, Making Out, Making Up, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Morning After, Mutual Pining, Night Swim, Past Abuse, Reunions, Summer Love, Summer Romance, Swimming, Teenlock, Time Skips, don't worry it's very brief, homophobic parents, horse riding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 14:47:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 54,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13661196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatawkwardfriend/pseuds/thatawkwardfriend
Summary: When John gets in a fight at school, his parents send him to Sussex for the summer in hopes that living with the Holmes’ will shape him up. It is there that he meets Sherlock Holmes: a class A asshole too smart for his own good.John expects a long, dull, lonely summer. What he does not expect is to form an unlikely friendship with the strange boy across the hall. What he expects even less is to fall in love with him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Hearts Don't Break Around Here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14433399) by [GaelleDragons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaelleDragons/pseuds/GaelleDragons)



The trouble was, John couldn’t exactly tell the truth about why he got in a fight that day.

There was no way he could describe how he’d strolled onto the school’s courtyard to find his 13-year-old sister trapped between two older boys. How upon approaching nearer, he heard them hurling threats and homophobic slurs at her.

Or how he then pulled one of them back by his collar and socked him in the jaw. How the other one pounced, tackling him to the ground while his friend recovered. Being a former rugby player, John was able to gain the upper hand and get a few good hits in. The first boy stopped his wrist before he could punch a fourth time and threw him back onto the concrete. The two of them pummeled him while he curled into a fetal position listening to Harry, his sister, cry and plead for them to stop. Finally, one of the school’s advisors arrived with two P.E. teachers to put an end to it.

Thirty minutes later, John sat in the headmaster’s office holding a bloody tissue to his lip. The conversation between his parents and the headmaster sitting in front of him traveled in one ear and out the other.

Through the window on his left he could see the two boys with their parents, who were yelling at the executive assistant in a separate room. They were obviously the kind of parents to defend their child against any and all accusations.

John wished his parents were that blindly supportive. But unfortunately for him, he had a long history of eighteen years reminding him of the reality of the situation.

When he was 6, he pushed a kid on the playground during a friendly game of football. He wasn’t hurt, but the incident was reported to his parents when the kid’s mother complained about a bruised shoulder. John was taken to his house to apologize and wasn’t allowed to play with his friends for a week. When he was 10, he received poor marks on a final exam. As a result, he was given a tutor and placed in an after-school program to improve his mathematical skills.  At age 14, he was caught with a cigarette by a friend’s mum. His parents put him on house arrest for two months, and for a long time after that, all group hangouts were to be at their flat and over by sundown. 

And now at age 18, as he sat in the office glaring at the wall just past his father’s ear, he wondered what horrendous punishment would be inflicted upon him this time.

A soft knock came at the door, pulling him out of his thoughts. The door timidly creaked open, and the headmaster beckoned in a shaking, teary-eyed Harry.

“Ms. Watson, could you please describe the events that took place earlier on the courtyard?”

She looked to John for guidance, who reassured her with with a small, almost imperceptible nod.

“Well um, I was waiting for my friend’s class to let out when they-”

“Which friend?”

“C-C-Clara,” she stammered out, as if uttering the name meant a death sentence. The headmaster nodded at her to continue. “I was waiting for her when those older boys came and started picking on me.”

“And why were they picking on you?”

She snapped her head towards John, her wide, bulging eyes begging for help. As always when his sister needed him, he jumped to her rescue.

“Because they’re bullies who can’t entertain themselves any other way than harassing 13-year-old girls.”

“Mr. Watson, my question was not addressed towards you.”

“But it’s true.”

“Well, I’m going to need more information than that if you don’t want to be suspended for the last remaining week of the semester.”

He glanced at Harry, and then to his parents. His mum looked concerned, and his dad was watching him carefully with a stern, disappointed frown.

Three years ago, when he was 15, he had formed his first crush on a boy - a friend of his named Hector. They went out for a movie one night, and John had been fairly certain it was a date. What with the way they’d shared a bottle of Coke, and how halfway through the film, their arms had found themselves linked together. When he was dropped off back at his flat, Hector lingered for a moment before grinning at him and leaning in. John’s heart raced wildly as he bent forward and met him in the middle.  _ So this was what kissing a boy was like,  _ ran through his mind. He’d thought about it fleetingly before, but never had it consumed his thoughts so wholly before he met Hector. He used to lay awake at night wondering what his skin would feel like, his lips, his hair. He wondered what it would be like to wrap his arms around broad, sturdy shoulders instead of soft, feminine curves. And now here he was, feeling his skin, his lips, his hair, wrapping his arms around those shoulders. And he had his answer . . . he loved it.

The porch light flicked on and the door to his flat flew open. The two of them jumped apart. John’s dad’s eyes bore furiously into him as he sent Hector home and pulled him in by the collar.

His dad had hit him before then. Just simple, sharp slaps to the face for talking back or getting in trouble. But it had never been like this. Flying fists and shoving into walls. Bloody lips and hurling venomous slurs. From around the corner, 10-year-old Harriet sobbed in their mother’s arms, trembling and frozen. He’d never forget the sheer horror he saw in her eyes that night. John already knew Harry liked girls. He’d read about a crush of hers in her diary once and had teased her about it harmlessly. They were both smart enough to never mention anything to their parents. 

When their eyes met in between John falling to the ground repeatedly from the never-ending rain of punches, he made her a silent vow to protect her from this. In her eyes, he saw that she understood, and she clutched her mum and sobbed harder while still never being able to tear her bulging eyes from the scene.

“Mr. Watson?” the headmaster called, forcing him to look back up. “I said we’re going to need more than what you told us.”

“I told you. They’re bullies.”

“The story they gave us is that you pounced on Mr. Evans when they were walking towards the bench behind Ms. Watson, and Mr. Thomas tried to defend him against your attack.”

“Well, that story is a lie.”

The headmaster leaned forward. “Well unless either you or Ms. Watson can give us a more specific reason other than she was being bullied, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do.”

John’s mind raced to come up with a reason - any reason - that someone might pick on his sister, and came up with none. She didn’t dress funny. She didn’t lisp or stutter. She got good marks in school and was by no means a loner.

He already knew it was too late. He had paused too long, and any story he scraped up now would obviously be a lie.

“Mr. Watson? Did you or did you not attack Mr. Evans for no reason?”

John looked from his parents back to Harry, where she stood trembling and  pale. He remembered the silent vow he’d made her with his eyes while his dad’s fists viciously assaulted him and his blood decorated the floor. The promise that she would never,  _ ever _ experience that.  _ Ever. _

He released a resigned breath and closed his eyes.

“I did.”

**********

When he got home, he didn’t get a beating as he’d expected, which honestly scared him more than if his father had immediately pinned him to the wall by this throat.

Instead, his parents retreated to their bedroom to talk in hushed whispers behind a closed door. He sat in the kitchen and nursed his wounded lip while he waited. Harry brought him an ice pack to place on his ribs, which were no doubt going to be hideously bruised by the end of the day. He nodded in appreciation and allowed her to sit silently with him while their parents talked. No words were needed. She didn’t need to thank him, and he was glad she understood that that’s the last thing he would have wanted in that moment.

At last his parents resurfaced from their bedroom with solemn expressions and revealed what punishment they’d decided on.

**********

“Sussex?!” he bellowed in anger.

“That’s right.”

“For the whole summer?”

A thousand objections flew threw his head, but none made it out of his mouth. How would he see his friends? Would he even see them at all? Would he ever visit home? What about Harry, left here all alone? Where would he live? How would he travel?

“Really, John. It’s only a few months,” his mum interjected as she read the questions flying across his face. “Arrangements have been made for you to stay in the Holmes’ manor.”

“Who?”

“Living with them ought to shape you up.”

“Who are they?”

“If they were able to raise a fine boy like Mycroft,” his mum began, her tone dripping with over-the-top respect and admiration.

“And that other one they mentioned. What’s his name? Sherlock. If they can handle him without losing their minds,” his dad continued for her. “Then you should be no problem.”

“Didn’t even know they had another son until we called,” his mum trailed off, thinking to herself.

_ “Guys! Who are they?” _

**********

All these events were how John found himself in the back of a sleek, black limousine with a two duffel bags at his feet on his way to Sussex.

Really, the whole thing was quite unfair, he thought to himself for the hundredth time as he stared out the window.

Sending him away for a whole summer for getting in a fight? A fight that hadn’t even been his fault, no less. Not that they would ever know that. Even still, a simple beating and extended house arrest would have been more bearable than this. How could his parents damn him to spending an entire summer away from his friends and sister? It was simply unfair.

As for this Holmes family, his mother had told him little more than the fact that his dad and Mr. Holmes knew each other from long ago. From the sound of it, it didn’t seem like they had been that good of friends. It also didn’t sound like they kept in touch a whole lot, going off the fact that his parents hadn’t even known they had a second son. John briefly wondered why he’d never heard of them before. His parents obviously had enough of a relationship with them to request that they take in their son for two months.

The Holmes’ had a son about his age. He knew that much. Sherlock, he believed it was. But from what his parents had mentioned under their breaths, he didn’t sound like too pleasant of a guy.  Aside from him, John would be alone with only Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, whom he probably had nothing in common with, for two whole months. It really was chalking up to be a boring summer indeed.

Thinking about it put him in a gloomy mood again, and he slouched into the plush, cushioned seat, crossing his arms. He’d been shocked to say the least when the glossy, black limo had pulled up to their drab London flat. He didn’t think anyone in his family had ever even seen a luxury car so close before. Harry had squealed in excitement before remembering it was there to take her brother away.

He knew the Holmes’ were wealthy. That much had been obvious when his mum mentioned he would be staying at their manor. But sending a limo to personally bring him there. That was . . . something. He let his mind idly wonder what living in a house that size would be like. He’d never been inside one before. Perhaps there’d be secret passageways and hidden tunnels he could explore. Bookshelves that turned into other rooms, artwork and libraries filled with ancient texts he could dive into. The thought cheered him up just slightly, but it did nothing to rid his mind of the knowledge that he’d be spending the summer alone and friendless in a town where he knew no one.

**********

John had fallen asleep with his head against the window, but awoke when a huge bump in the road resulted in a sore spot on his temple. For the next fifteen minutes, he stared out the window admiring the charming quaintness of Sussex.

The small village they were passing through quickly vanished when they veered off the main street, and soon they were heading down a seemingly never-ending dirt road.

One moment they were driving down the long, winding path with trees and lush, green grass surrounding them on all sides. The next moment, the trees parted to reveal a clearing, and John’s jaw dropped at his first view of the Holmes’ manor.

His eyes trailed up the beige exterior to the dark, towering roofs. The façade was perfectly symmetrical, including the chimneys, windows, and all. It appeared to be taken directly out of a romance or period film that took place in the countryside.

John noticed that the perfectly trimmed front yard was large enough to play rugby on, but his budding excitement quickly faded as he remembered he’d likely have no one here to play with. Not that it mattered, he reminded himself with a twinge of bitterness. His father had ordered him to quit the team three years ago when he’d found out he was bisexual. He didn’t want him, as he put it, “copping a feel while rolling around in the grass with the other boys.”

The limo cruised down a long path before the driver pulled up to the front entrance and let him climb out. There wasn’t much to help him unload. Just his two duffels and a back pack. With a professional nod, he drove off, leaving John with his head tilted all the way up, staring in wonder at the manor in front of him.

As he ascended up the staircase leading to the door, he suddenly felt very small and underdressed in his old, plaid shirt and khakis. After a single knock, a thin, old man who appeared to be a butler answered the door and ushered him in with a tight, practiced smile.

John thought his old sneakers looked out of place on the white, marble floor of the grand entrance. He looked up and saw a lovely chandelier and two curved staircases leading up to the same spot on the second floor. The deep, chocolate brown railing curling along the stairs contrasted beautifully with the ivory walls and beige accents surrounding them.

“This way,” the butler urged, forcing him to tear his gaze away from the décor. He followed him out of the foyer and further into the manor.

Suddenly, a curvy woman with white hair tied up in a loose bun rounded the corner.

“Oh!” She cried in delight as she clasped her hands together by her cheek. “You must be John! Oh my, how you’ve grown!”  She approached him and enveloped him in a bone-crushing hug.

“Er – hi,” John managed to say with the little breath that wasn’t squeezed out of him.

“Apologies,” the woman said, releasing him.

“And you’re Mrs. Holmes?” he asked. It was a genuine question, not an assumption. He hadn’t known what to expect the Holmes’ to be like. But he certainly hadn’t expected this short, cheery woman in a simple apron, with a pencil stuck in her bun like it was the most obvious place for it.

“Oh please, none of that. Call me Vicki.”

“Vicki,” he repeated with a smile. It felt strange in his mouth. He’d never addressed adults by their first names before. His parents were ‘mum’ and ‘dad,’ his teachers ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’, and his friend’s parents were ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ “It’s lovely to meet you.”

She replied with a wide smile, full of warmth and sincerity. “Likewise. I'm afraid you won't get to meet my husband for a few weeks. He's traveling, you see." She looked him up and down appreciatively once more, "My, you’re nothing like your parents described,” she said almost to herself as she led him into the kitchen.

John chuckled bitterly under his breath, wondering what ludicrous story about this disciplinary issues his parents had given her.  “Oh, yeah? And what did they say?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Vicki brushed off uncomfortably, probably not wanting to offend him. “We’re perfectly happy to have you here,” she said as if he were there on vacation and not because he’d beat up two kids in his school’s courtyard. “Sherlock will be glad to have you as well. He just takes some warming up to. Please don’t be put off by anything he says. He’s a good boy, I assure you.

John smiled tightly, not knowing how to respond.

“Now. Wallace here can take you and your bags to your room,” she said, gesturing to the butler who had been hovering near them this whole time. He made John slightly uncomfortable with his beady eyes and silent, yet omniscient presence.

**********

His room was on the third floor at the far end of a long hallway. Wallace opened the door for him, set his bags down, and disappeared almost silently. The room was normal-sized and in no way too extravagant. There was a single bed set against the far wall, and a small, but elegant chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Maroon drapes hung from the four posts on each corner of the bed, and delicate, swirly stencils decorated the walls.

But what caught his eye were the glass double doors on his right, framed tastefully by thin, cream-colored curtains. A refreshing breeze washed over his face as he pushed them open and walked out onto the balcony attached to the room.

He gasped when he saw the backyard. It was larger than a rugby field . . . many rugby fields in fact. The cropped, light green grass matched that of the front yard, striped back and forth with darker shades showing where it had been mowed. There was a tall fountain in the middle, surrounded by a stone path that led back to the porch, which was directly below him. From what he could see looking over the edge, it was simply decorated with cushioned chairs, potted plants, and a vined archway. Lush, green trees of every variety surrounded the perimeter of the yard. It was picturesque. It was perfect. It was beautiful. John inhaled another breath of that sweet, crisp, summer air and imagined himself spending his days here laying out the porch sketching his surroundings. He’d always loved sketching.

“Rugby or football?” came a rich, velvety voice from behind him, interrupting his bubble of serenity.

He jumped and whirled around to find a tall, skinny boy with pale skin and a head of thick, dark curls.

“Sorry?” he asked, his heart still stammering from the shock.

“Which is it? Rugby or football?” the boy repeated, uttering each syllable slowly as if he was too daft to understand. With his stiff posture and clasped hands behind his back, he had a natural air of authority and superiority.

“Rugby,” he answered, slowly re-entering the room. “Sorry, how did you know that?”

The boy ignored him, and instead muttered madly to himself about how he should have known based on the arch of his feet and distribution of weight throughout his body. John scratched the back of his head uncomfortably, feeling like he was a textbook being studied.

“Right. And you must be Sherlock?”

“Obviously.”

“I’m John.”

“Obviously,” he repeated with more bite.

“Right.” For a moment they stood silently in the middle of his room. John felt pinned to the spot by Sherlock’s icy, blue stare. “Well, if that’s all -,”

“You’ve never even stepped foot in a house this big, have you?”

John smiled coldly and let out a humorless laugh, wondering if this was some fucked up way he had of trying to make friends. “What gave it away?” he asked, looking down sarcastically at his hand-me-down clothes and old sneakers.

“Don’t be silly. Wealthy people don’t exactly dress to the 9’s on a regular basis. It’s the way you’re holding yourself like if you step too hard onto the floor, it’ll break underneath your feet. You walk like you’re trying to leave as little a trace of yourself as possible. When you arrived you stopped to stare at the front of the house for a solid minute.”

John nodded, but failed to see why this was information worth telling him. He wasn’t exactly trying to hide the fact that he was amazed by the manor. But Sherlock continued. 

“You live in a small flat with your family. You shared a room with your sister until you became too old. But still, you never shook the habit of keeping your things collected on one side of the room. You placed your bags on the small chair in the corner, even though there’s a much larger, more obvious place for them on the center bench there by the bed.”

“That’s . . .” John trailed off, drawn in by his voice and the way his eyes raked over him as he spoke, like he was giving a presentation and John was his visual aid. He was about to tell him his observations were amazing, but he continued.

“You’ve always lived in that same flat. Your family is unable to afford anything bigger, or even newer. Your father can’t hold down a job, always keeping him at entry level positions. Any extra cash the rest of you rake up usually ends up getting wasted on alcohol, given that your father has an addictive personality. One that will likely be passed on to you.”

At the mention of his dad, John’s smile faded slowly, his expression growing darker and darker as Sherlock rambled on, completely oblivious to the change in his demeanor.

“He drinks nearly every night. On weekends though, he gets especially drunk. And given his temper and natural inclination towards violence –,”

John shot forward and pinned Sherlock against one of the posts of the four-poster bed. Breathing hotly in his face, he growled through gritted teeth, “Let’s get one thing straight right now. You don’t ever deduce anything about my father.  _ Ever _ . Do you understand me?”

Other than the fact that he’d shut up immediately, Sherlock seemed largely unfazed by his confrontation. “Perfectly,” he said, looking down at him with an arched eyebrow.

After another moment of glaring directly into his eyes, John released the front of his shirt and stepped back.

Great, he thought, hanging his head in embarrassment as he mentally shook off the remaining anger. Sherlock would probably tell Mrs. Holmes he’d lashed out, and she’d realize everything his mum had told her was true.

“My bedroom is directly across the hall,” Sherlock said, as he stepped out of his room. “If you need anything and if it’s inconvenient to ask me, ask Wallace. If it’s convenient, ask him anyway.”

With that, Sherlock disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as Wallace had.

John’s heart still thumped with restrained fury as he returned to his bags to unpack. He supposed he now understood what his mum had meant by all those vague, side comments about the Holmes’ second son, and what Vicki meant when she warned him not to be affronted by him. He found it incredulous that someone as warm and cheerful as Vicki could have such a prick for a son.

As he unfolded his shirts and shorts, he wondered if it would be possible to spend his whole summer here avoiding Sherlock Holmes.  

 


	2. Chapter 2

John took another sip of his tea as he listened to Vicki tell him about her old job as an Oxford maths professor. They had fallen into somewhat of a routine the last few days. John would come downstairs for breakfast at around nine. A full meal would be already laid out for him. And when he was finished, he would drink his tea and listen to Vicki’s tales as she bustled around cleaning up. He had noticed that although Wallace handled most of the general household chores, she preferred for him to stay out of the kitchen. She loved cooking, she told him. Her apron was part of her everyday wear, as was always having an object stuck in her messy bun, be it a spoon, chopstick, or pen.

He laughed heartily as Vicki pointed a dough-covered spoon at him and wrapped up her story about Freddie Williams, the naughtiest, most immature student to ever set foot in her class. But oh, she had dealt with him all right. And from his reactions, it seemed she’d been the first teacher to ever tell him off.

John’s laughter immediately ceased when Sherlock rounded the corner, showered and fully dressed.

It had been five days since their first rocky encounter, and for the most part, they hadn’t seen much of each other at all. Sherlock was always awake far before him, and given the size of the manor, they were never in the same place at the same time. That was fine by him. Avoiding him had turned out to be much easier than he’d thought, what with them living across the hall from each other.

John challenged Sherlock with his eyes when he looked at him curiously from across the kitchen. Meanwhile, Vicki seemed oblivious to the tense, battling air between them.

“Where are you going, Sherlock?”

“Out,” he replied, buttoning his sleeves without breaking eye contact. 

When he was out the door, Vicki squealed and clasped her hands in front of her like she had when she’d first seen John.

“Oh, I’m so happy Sherlock will have a friend for the summer!”

John scoffed into his teacup.  _ Like that would ever happen.  _

“You see, Mycroft, my other son, was easy. Always perfectly well-behaved. All his teachers loved him. Mind you, he didn’t have many friends. But he never really needed that sort of thing.”

John nodded along politely, but began to wonder why she was telling him this.

“Now Sherlock on the other hand.”  _ Ah, here we go. _ “A wild little child, he was. Erratic and energetic and just . . . so, so far ahead of his age. The difference in his intelligence and maturity caused somewhat of a mental disconnect.  _ That’s _ what made it difficult with him. He never had friends growing up. Not one. And the bullies, oh goodness.”

At the mention of bullies, John lifted his head from where he was hiding in his cup.

“They picked on him terribly for that brain of his. And he tried so hard to pretend it didn’t affect him. But a mother knows. I knew he had a deeply rooted need to be loved and accepted, whether he wanted to admit it or not. And not just by his parents and teachers. By his  _ peers  _ as well. That’s what made him different than Mycroft.”

John awkwardly looked down into his cup, swirling around the last drops of tea at the bottom.

“Oh John, they were ruthless,” she continued. He winced in reluctant sympathy as his mind unhelpfully supplied images of Harry being cornered by the two older boys.  “Called him all sorts of names. ‘Freak, psychopath, weirdo’ you name it. And you know how children are. Once someone popular has selected a target, everyone else jumps on board. And that Sebastian Wilkes . . .” She shook her head is disapproval. “You can imagine why Sherlock never made friends.”

She turned and continued washing the dishes as if they’d just been discussing the weather. John couldn’t bring himself to look up from his teacup.

“Anyway,” Vicki continued. “I’m just glad you’re here, is all. You’re a good boy, John.”

Guilt washed over him thinking about how he’d treated Sherlock on his first day here. Maybe that had been his genuine attempt at introducing himself and making a friend. Perhaps he should apologize.

No. He stamped out his thoughts. Sherlock had stepped way out of line bringing his dad up like that. He deserved it . . . Right? Or was he just telling himself that to make the roiling nausea in his stomach go away?

He thanked Vicki for a lovely meal and left the kitchen in a hurry.

**********

Some hours later, John found himself wandering the grounds. He had busied himself the last five days exploring the manor, but to his disappointment found no secret lairs or hidden tunnels. He officially gave up on trying to find any when Wallace found him pushing on a bookshelf, which had remained stationary against the solid wall behind it.

But the manor’s massive backyard was something he hadn’t yet had the chance to fully enjoy. He strolled down the stoned path and circled the fountain in the middle of the cropped grass, admiring the intricate carvings and delicate landscaping. When he got tired of that, he wondered if he was allowed to venture past the thick perimeter of trees bordering the open grass. He never really asked how far behind the manor the Holmes’ property extended. But what harm could possibly come of a little exploring? After all, this was the only place of residence for miles in any direction. Vicki certainly wouldn’t be mad. Sherlock disappeared for hours on end all the time, and she never interrogated him of his whereabouts. With one last apprehensive look at the manor, he silently slipped into the thick cover of the trees.

John couldn’t possibly keep track of how long he wandered, weaving between trees, stopping to inspect this and that, wondering if he’d already passed those logs. But mostly, he was looking for a cozy place to sit and sketch. His sketchbook had remained neglected in his backpack since he’d arrived. It was dying for attention, and his fingers were itching to create.

At last, the woods opened into a massive clearing. A beautiful golden field of wavy grass stretched out for miles into gentle, rolling hills. Puffs of white flowers were scattered throughout, catching the afternoon sunlight at the perfect angle. And it was all hidden deep into these woods where it seemed no one else cared to venture.

John stayed back by the edge of the treeline, not quite entering the field, and sat with his back against a sturdy trunk. Opening to a blank page in his sketchbook, he began flicking his wrist rapidly to create soft strokes of wispy grass. Darker here, lighter there. A bit bushier here, and a glint of sunlight there. 

He was so lost in detailing the scene onto a piece of yellowish paper that he missed the approaching pitter-patter in the distance. It was only when his sketching hand began to tremble from the ground’s increasingly violent vibrations that he looked up to find the source of the ruckus.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a large, black, blur burst through the trees on his right and dashed out onto the field. John would have fallen backwards in surprise had it not been for the trunk supporting his back. Upon looking closer, he realized the blur was, in fact, a magnificent, black horse.

And riding gallantly on its back like he was born to be here . . . was Sherlock Holmes.

John’s eyes glazed over in awe at the majestic picture of them gliding back and forth across the field as one unit. He had never seen someone so at peace before. So different was this from the abrasive, rigid boy he’d met upon arriving at the manor. The boy in front of him was loose, free, and completely content on the back of this bold, magnificent creature. 

Closing his gaping jaw, John settled back against the tree and found his pencil in the grass beside him. Glancing rapidly between his sketchbook and Sherlock, he began to outline a horse on the field. 

He traced the muscular thighs and shaded in the shimmering mane flying wildly in the wind. And on its, back, Sherlock leaning forward, completely immersed in his surroundings and unaware that John was mere meters away capturing him permanently onto a page.

**********

Back in the manor some hours later, John tucked his sketchbook safely into his backpack and headed back downstairs. After safely dodging a conversation with Vicki, he snuck out through the back porch. Not to be misunderstood; he loved chatting with her. It was what he looked forward to the most every morning since he’d been here: a fully prepared breakfast, hot tea, and listening to another one of Vicki’s stories.

But right now, he had but one thing in mind. And that was to find where Sherlock kept that horse. He had a strong suspicion that was where he snuck off to everyday and he was determined to find out for sure. He had no idea why he even needed to know so badly, but there was something magnetic about him. From the way he disappeared and crept around the manor almost completely undetected, to the contrast between his ruthless deductions and his free-spirited riding – he simply had to find out more about him.

It had been a good few hours since John had sketched him riding the horse, and he had noticed the direction they’d wandered off to when they were finished. They had seemed to be heading back to the manor, so it couldn’t be too far off.

He slipped past the perimeter of trees once again and this time headed to the right instead of straight ahead. Soon enough, the trees cleared, revealing a small, grassy slope from where he was standing. Down at the base of the hill was a small, white barn with a brown roof.

Bingo.

John carefully descended down the stone steps embedded in the slope and pushed past the large double doors of the barn. Down his left and right were several roomy stables, each containing a horse.

The black horse, first on his left, was even more majestic in person. He realized her glossy coat glimmered like silk even in these dusty, dimly-lit stables. It almost gave off the appearance of being wet. Her face was sharp and angular, her hooded eyes staring darkly down at him from behind her bangs. He cautiously approached and stuck his hand out in offering.

She stamped her foot and nipped at his hand before turning her head away in disgust.

John chuckled in amusement, lowering his hand.

“Okay, okay. Looks like you don’t like me much.” With a smile, he turned his attention to the other three horses in the stables.

Directly across from the black one was a bored looking stallion with a dull white and grey coat, and a matching dark grey mane. Next to it was a white horse that appeared to have been plucked straight from a fairy tale. All that was missing was a pair of fluffy wings and a horn on its forehead.

But what really caught John’s eye was the horse at the very back - Golden tan with a smooth, black mane and tail. As he approached, it lifted its head in curiosity and stuck it over the top of the gate. This one didn’t turn its nose up when he stuck his hand out. Instead, it grunted and nuzzled its snout into his hand.

John chuckled and stroked his fingers through the dark, textured mane.

“Her name is Juliet,” came a deep voice from behind him.

John spun around to find Sherlock leaning against a wooden pillar, watching him.

“You need to stop doing that,” he said. If he was going to be here all summer, Sherlock couldn’t keep announcing his presence by sneaking up and giving him a heart attack.

Sherlock continued to pin him with his stare. John swallowed nervously, wondering what was going through that head of his. He wasn’t supposed to even be here, let alone interacting with his horses. Would he get in trouble with Vicki? Would Sherlock be angry that he’d followed him?

Sherlock pushed off the pillar with what looked like a hidden smirk. He must have been able to read every question and concern that had just flown across his face. John always did hate that about himself. He may be a closed book, but that didn’t stop his every emotion from showing in each flicker and twitch of his face.

The strange thing was that Sherlock didn’t seem to mind that he was here at all. 

When John went too long without paying attention to Juliet, she nudged the side of his head and grunted to remind him of her presence. John grinned at her and continued to stroke her neck.

“We bought her when she was just a foal. She’s not the brightest, but she has a heart of gold,” Sherlock said, reaching over the black horse’s stable and stroking her fondly.

“What do you mean ‘not the brightest?’” John asked, scratching between Juliet’s ears. He was surprised at the level of defensiveness he already felt for this creature he’d only just met. “Aren’t horses supposed to intelligent?”

“Yes, but look at her right now. She trusts strangers way too quickly. She doesn’t even know you,” he said somewhat smugly. He continued to stroke his own horse proudly as if she was too good to ever do something so stupid.

“Well, you know what they say. Animals have great instincts,” John replied cheekily as he rubbed the side of Juliet’s face.

“But place your trust in the wrong person, and you could end up hurt. She’ll need to learn this lesson eventually.”

“Oh, don’t be such a pessimist. She’s just friendly.” At this, Juliet whinnied and nuzzled into the top of his head. “Or maybe she just really likes me.”

“Don’t get too attached,” Sherlock said, picking up an apple from a nearby barrel and tossing it into her stable. Immediately she trotted off to scoop it into her mouth. “She’s a fickle friend.”

John smiled as he watched her gobble the apple as if she hadn’t eaten in days.

“And this here,” Sherlock said, dragging a bucket of water to the black horse’s stable, “is Selene.” He unlocked the gate and allowed her to bend down and lap at the water. “I wanted to name her Blackbeard, after the pirate. But my parents told me she was a lady. I thought being named after a goddess of the moon was more fitting for an ethereal beauty like her.”

“She’s got a bit of an attitude.”

“I prefer to call it selective companionship,” he said proudly.

“She nearly bit my hand off.”

Sherlock chuckled deeply and scratched her ear. It took a moment for John to realize what he was doing.

“Don’t reward her for that! Teach her some manners!”

“Or perhaps I need to teach you how to treat her right.”

“I was a perfect gentleman when I approached her, thank you very much.”

“Just come here.”

As John neared them, Selene snorted again and turned her head.

“See?”

“Do as I do,” Sherlock said, extending his hand.

John followed, and allowed his wrist to be guided forward by a bony hand. Sherlock’s approval of his presence seemed to put Selene somewhat at ease.

When he was a hair’s width from touching her neck, Sherlock’s palm covered the back of his hand and pushed it forward. Selene tensed, but was instantly soothed by Sherlock rubbing her snout.

“There we go,” his voice rumbled deep.

Sherlock’s palm was very warm on top of his own. Whereas before he had been cold and distant, he now couldn’t deny the undeniably human warmth seeping deeper into his skin with each second the contact lingered.

John looked at their hands and wondered if Sherlock’s school bullies would still call him a “cold-hearted freak” if they could see him now, building trust between two living things through softness, guidance, and physical contact.

When Sherlock cocked an eyebrow, John noticed he’d at some point turned his gaze towards his face and was now openly staring.

“Er, sorry,” he said awkwardly, removing his hand from Selene. Instantly, the back of his hand felt colder, and . . . almost lonelier.  “Look, um. I think we started off on the wrong foot.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “John, if you think you need to apologize –,”

“I do.”

“There’s no need to make us both feel more uncomfortable than -,”

“Look, just. Let’s start over, okay? We don’t need to spend all summer each pretending the other doesn’t exist.”

Sherlock’s eyes shifted awkwardly for a moment. He then nodded once, and that was the end of it.

“Erm, John. Perhaps you should return to your new friend.” Sherlock was looking past his shoulder with a bemused expression.

John turned around and laughed when he found Juliet’s head hanging out of her gate, her large puppy-dog eyes pointedly watching the two of them ignoring her.

He returned to her side and rubbed her head, and was rewarded with a puff of smelly breath to the face. He turned and coughed (ignoring Sherlock’s smug chuckle), and was reminded of the other two horses in the stables.

“Who are they?”

“The grey one is Napoleon. He belongs to my brother Mycroft, who thankfully no longer lives here.”

“Where is he?”

“Off working some cushy government job. The white one is Persephone. My parents met by training her together.”

“That’s . . . oddly romantic.”

“Yes, I think so as well. Napoleon and Selene were gifts my brother and I each got when we turned ten and began learning to ride. However, Selene and Juliet had been raised together their whole lives. They formed an unusual bond and for some reason couldn’t be separated. Selene went into some sort of depression a month after we bought her, and we had to go back for Juliet.”

“That’s incredible. They’re all incredible. Truly.” He admiringly stroked through Juliet’s mane, and she actually  _ batted her eyes _ at him.

“I can teach you to ride if you’d like,” Sherlock said. John’s head snapped towards him.

“Really?” he asked enthusiastically. “I’d love that.” In fact, he couldn’t think of a better way to spend his time while he was here. Surely at some point he would eventually get bored of sketching the grounds and exploring by himself.

Sherlock nodded stiffly, like he was unsure what ludicrous offer had just burst out of his mouth.

“Alright then. We’ll start at dawn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all your comments on the first chapter! I appreciate each and every single one :)


	3. Chapter 3

John wished he could say he didn’t stay up checking the clock every half hour that night.  He also wished he hadn’t dozed off precisely one hour before dawn, but such is the nature of life.

He rolled out of bed feeling woozy from lack of sleep, but eager nonetheless. He wrestled on some trousers and a shirt and stopped in the kitchen to grab an apple, munching on it as he headed out through the back porch.

The early morning sky stretched over his head in a deep, royal blue. It easily could have been evening were it not for the brisk morning air and misty fog that only came with dawn. The clouds scattered overhead appeared only in soft, faint whispers, as if they were trying not to disturb the sky so early in the day. The faintest threads of white light peeked through the spaces in the trees at eye level as the sun made its first appearance of the day.

Sherlock was already in the stables when John arrived, fresh and fully awake. He tossed a brush blindly over his shoulder, aimed perfectly for John even though he hadn’t announced his presence yet.

“Start brushing through Juliet’s tail and mane. Get any stray hairs out, then go gently over her face and body.”

“Righto.”

Juliet seemed thrilled to see him again. She lifted her head and huffed, thumping her hooves in place like she wanted to run towards him but had nowhere to move.

“Hey, girl,” he said, rubbing a hand down her snout.

“I’m going to brush your hair, alright?”

From behind him, Sherlock snorted while working on Selene.

“You don’t have to ask permission, John. She’s not a child you’re babysitting.”

John rolled his eyes. He really had no experience with animals. He’d never owned a pet, and his friends who did only had cats that would scurry away upon encountering strangers. He gently brushed down Juliet’s mane. The bristles didn’t exactly go through the strands. They only went over to remove the strays, as Sherlock as said.

He finished and moved on to her tail, then face, neck, and sides. Juliet remained a perfectly well behaved angel the whole time – except for when he’d come within her visual range. Then she’d teasingly nudge the back of his head and look away like she hadn’t done anything.

When they were finished grooming their horses, Sherlock instructed him on how to saddle her up. Then they led Selene and Juliet outside the stables. The sky was now a faint, periwinkle blue streaked with vibrant stripes of red, orange, and pink. John was amazed at how quickly the sun had risen from its low point on the horizon.

“You’ll want to put your left foot in the stirrup and kick off with your right. Only use your arms to support yourself by holding the reins and saddle.”

John followed his instructions exactly, but ended up nearly belly flopping over Juliet’s back and sliding down her side. Sherlock snorted again as he positioned himself to try again.

“You’re not exactly being the most supportive teacher, you know,” John said as he tried and failed again.

“Third time’s a charm,” Sherlock replied teasingly.

His foot slipped and he slid off again, this time bonking his nose on her side as he went down.

“Or not.”

John frowned at him, refusing to let his pride be dampened by the fact that he couldn’t even mount a stupid horse.

Juliet huffed and stomped as if she’d heard his thoughts, and he rubbed her side in apology. He placed his foot in the stirrup once more and kicked off as hard as he could. At last, he was able to swing his leg over her back and land softly on the saddle.

“That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

“Shut it, you.”

Sherlock effortlessly hopped up onto Selene’s back and trotted in front of them. Juliet, however, remained stationary. John looked up to see Sherlock smirking as he watched him trying to figure out how to make her move.

“Er – go,” John said, pointing ahead in front of her eyes.

Sherlock cackled gleefully, and if it wasn’t at his expense, John would’ve thought it was the most delightful sound he’d ever heard.

“It’d be nice if you could actually  _ tell me how to do things _ , you twat.” 

Sherlock wiped away the giddy tears from his eyes. “Squeeze gently with your calves.”

John did, and immediately Juliet lurched forward into a trot.

“Woah!” John grasped the reins as tightly as he could, feeling like he was about to be thrown off and trampled.

“We’re gonna skip walking,” Sherlock said, his eyes twinkling mischievously as he watched John struggle. “It’s boring.”

The ride was rough and bumpy and incredibly unpleasant, but that didn’t matter because he was riding a horse.  _ He was riding a horse! _ He had never so much as touched an animal more exotic than a dog or a cat, and now here he was on the back of the most beautiful, amazing creature he’d ever seen.

Once again, Juliet seemed to be able to read his thoughts and whinnied cheerfully for him.

They stayed in the clearing outside the stables for a fairly long time. By the time Sherlock had showed him how to post during a trot and how to use the reins to turn and stop the horse, John’s rear end was sore and throbbing. Sherlock called him a natural many times. And he had to admit himself, aside from the mishap with the mounting, he did seem to be catching onto this pretty quickly.

Several hours later, when the afternoon sun was beating down on them, they decided to take a break.

“You know what? I think you’re ready to canter,” Sherlock said as they sat together on the porch eating the sandwiches Vicki had made them.

John slumped and ran a hand across his lower back. 

“Don’t worry,” Sherlock reassured him. “It’s a much smoother ride. And if you can get up to a canter, we can go out into the field. It’ll be much more fun than staying in the dirt clearing.”

One hour later, they were indeed out in the field, riding side by side in a comfortable, rhythmic canter. The golden field was beautiful when John had seen it for the first time. But seeing it fly by him on horseback, with the summer air rushing past his face, feeling completely weightless. . . that was simply amazing. The ride was incredibly smooth. He had never felt anything more exhilarating in his life.

“If you want her to slow down, just squeeze slightly with your legs and lean back a bit,” Sherlock said, when Juliet started going a bit too fast. “Relax. You need to relax. You’ve never interacted with large animals before today. You and Juliet seem to have an unusual instant connection but that doesn’t stop you from feeling slightly nervous on her back.”

John relaxed but signaled to Juliet to slow down even more.

“I think that’s enough for today.”

They continued for a while at a walk, until John broke the silence with a question that had been bothering him.

“How did you know that?”

“Know what?”

“That I’d never been around animals before?”

“It’s obvious.”

“It’s not to me. I can’t look at you and tell what kind of animals you’ve dealt with before.”

Sherlock pursed his lips defensively. “That’s because you see but don’t observe. Just like everyone else.”

“‘See but don’t observe.’ So, what? You look at people and can just tell things about them by their clothes or posture or things like that?”

Sherlock looked almost offended at the loose description of his craft. “If you want to reduce it down to such simplicities, then sure. I can ‘just tell things about people.’”

John laughed pleasantly at him. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to insult your art.”

“It’s a science. The science of deduction,” Sherlock corrected in complete seriousness.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Inside, he was still laughing at how seriously he was taking his playful jabs – if you could even call them jabs. He briefly wondered if anyone had ever even joked around with him like this before. Considering what Vicki had told him about Sherlock's social situation growing up, he guessed it was unlikely. 

“It is quite amazing though. That you can do that.”

Sherlock looked at him puzzlingly. “You think so?”

“Of course it is. Quite extraordinary. I meant to tell you that first day, but . . . you know.”

“I was an arse?”

John laughed in agreement. “So,” he started, in attempt to divert to a new topic. “You know all this stuff about me, but I hardly know anything about you.”  _ Besides the fact that you were bullied mercilessly in school, but that’s beside the point. _ “Tell me something about yourself.”

Sherlock blinked rapidly, seemingly astonished at the fact that someone was inquiring about him personally. “I . . . um. What do you want to know?” he stammered out.

“I don’t know. You got a girlfriend?”

“Er, no,” he said, as if he’d just been asked if he had a pet dinosaur. “Not really my area.”

John was unsure as to why that answer relieved him of an unpleasant pressure that had been settled onto his chest since the previous night - the kind of pressure he felt right before asking a girl out, that tormenting fear of rejection.

“Alright,” he continued, trying not to ponder too hard on how much lighter he felt all of a sudden. A pestering little voice in his head asked him if he dared ask the follow up question burning in the back of his mind. “Sorry if I was being presumptuous. I just assumed, since, you know. . .” he trailed off. _Since you have the face of an angel,_ his mind unhelpfully added before he quickly shut it up.

“You were.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Being presumptuous.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He took a deep breath, desperately trying to backtrack. His confidence deflated, and he decided against asking the second question on his mind. “Okay,” he continued. “What about your interests? Hobbies? Fears?”

“There’s not much to do out here. If I go too long without something to occupy my brain, it rots. So I busy myself with my own studies and experiments. When that becomes mentally overwhelming, I come out here with Selene to clear my mind.”

“You said you’ve had her since you were ten?”

He hummed in confirmation. “We’ve bonded significantly.” He patted the side of her neck in affection, and she lifted her head like she was a queen and Sherlock was bowing at her feet in worship. John smiled at the difference in her and Juliet’s personalities. It was a wonder how they could have bonded so closely that they had to be adopted together.

“As for my fears,” Sherlock continued, looking thoughtful for a moment. “Boredom,” he decided.

John chuckled. “Figures. I’m afraid of heights.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. Just makes me uneasy. Not every fear has to have some tragic backstory.”

“No, I suppose not.”

They rode in comfortable silence for some time. The sky above them was beginning to darken ever so slightly. John had never felt so at ease with anyone before in his life. He had a small group of friends growing up, but as friends did, they came and went. He had gotten close to a few, but there was always a respectful layer of distance between them. There was his sister Harry, whom he loved dearly. But there’s only so much you open up to your sister who’s five years younger than you. Their relationship consisted mostly of her coming to him with personal things.

Now here he was with a boy he’d met just about a week ago. Nearly a stranger. And it somehow felt like he’d known him a hundred years. His eyes raked down his sculpted face, admiring for a moment. Sherlock was looking straight ahead, unaware of John drinking him in with his eyes like he was a piece of art. Looking at him now, he realized he was in fact quite handsome. All dark curls and pale skin . . . Those aquamarine eyes, always scrutinizing, studying, inspecting. The way he carried himself like he was not one with the people around him. He was merely an observer, here to examine but not to be engaged with.

“Why did your parents send you here?” Sherlock piped up suddenly, like he’d been holding the question back for hours. His gaze remained fixed ahead, like he wanted to pretend he hadn’t asked the question but was still dying to know.

John cleared his throat, quickly trying to decide how much he wanted to reveal. Strangely, he found that he didn’t mind telling the truth for once. He doubted he’d even tell his closest friends back home what had happened - if he could even call them "close friends."

“Well, I got in a fight with two boys at my school.”

“Yes, I know that much. But I know there’s more to the story than what you’ve told anyone.”

“Of course you do.” He smiled to himself.  “They were bullying my sister, Harry. The boys, I mean. Calling her . . . names, and . . .”

“What sort of names?”

John bit his lip and looked away, feeling slightly unsure about his decision. “Slurs.” He added after a pause, “Homophobic slurs.”

“I see.”

A weight lifted off his chest, and he knew instinctively that he’d made the right choice in telling him. “Yeah. So I pulled one away from her and socked him in the jaw.”

“He deserved it.”

“Damn right, he did. That resulted in a full blown fight. And afterwards, I couldn’t tell the truth about why I’d punched them without outing Harry. I couldn’t think of a story quick enough, and they assumed I’d started it.”

“So your parents sent you here as punishment?”

“In a way, I guess. But they also seem to think that living here can "shape me up," as they put it. I guess, in retrospect, I shouldn’t be surprised.  My parents have always had a knack for coming up with outrageously over-the-top punishments. Especially my dad." He added under his breath after a moment, "I fucking hate his guts.”

Sherlock pointedly did not say anything, most likely trying to stay true to his word to not deduce anything about his father. John silently thanked him, and they continued to ride until it was nearly dusk.

**********

The next week flew by in a blur. John and Sherlock spent every day out in the fields on horseback. Before long, John could comfortably ride alongside Sherlock in a fluid canter.

One evening, he sat comfortably in the Holmes’ living room with Vicki, a roasting fire dancing in front of them.

“Did you two ride again today?” Vicki asked, sipping her tea.

“Yes.”

Her eyes crinkled in a warm smile. “I take it you’ve been enjoying yourself here, then?”

“Very much so,” John replied. And he found he meant it.

“I thought you would,” Vicki said, leaning back in her armchair. John sensed a story coming along. “We used to live over in London before we came here. It’s no comparison, really. I hope you don’t mind me saying.”

John raised his eyebrows in surprise, before realizing the Holmes' probably had not lived anywhere near where John and his family stayed in their drab city flat.

“We had a good life for ourselves there. Well, me and my husband at least. And Mycroft was soon to graduate.  But Sherlock had such a hard time, being so intellectually ahead of his age. The other children gave him hell for it, as I told you. And like I said, he tried to act like he was unaffected by these things, but deep down I knew he was.  So I decided to move us here to protect him from all those children, and whatever else the nasty world had to throw at him.”

“Why here?”

“My mother passed and I inherited this manor. It sat empty for years until we moved,” she said, looking around the living room with pride. “I wanted a place with good history, you see.”

“Good history?”

“My parents fell in love on these grounds. So did her mother and her husband. And I met the love of  _ my  _ life down in the stables. We raised a foal together,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

John raised his eyebrow, figuring there was much more to her and her husband’s origin story than simply raising Persephone.

“My dad didn’t like that I had fallen for the stable boy,” she added with a mischievous wink. “Oh, it was wonderful.”

She finished off the last of her tea with one sip. “He tried to set me up with some other boy at the time. Studied at Eton, wealthy family. . . Full package. But I eloped with William instead.” She threw her head back and laughed merrily, obviously reminiscing in whatever heart attack she’d caused her father upon returning.

A soft, tired grin spread across her face when her laughter died down.

“So that’s why I chose this place. Hearts don’t break around here, John.” She stood and collected his empty tea mug. “I can only hope that my boy will always be safe and loved for as long as he’s here.”

John watched her go, both puzzled and intrigued by what he’d just heard.

**********

John’s nimble hand rapidly etched back and forth on the yellowed page, forming his memory of Juliet’s face. The porch swing rocked him back and forth as he absent-mindedly kicked off from the ground every so often. As he sketched, he pondered what Vicki had told him the night before.

_ Hearts don’t break around here. _

What an odd thing to say. As if keeping Sherlock in this manor could save him from the cruelties of the world forever. Everyone has to leave the nest at some point, and it was naive of Vicki to think she could protect him forever just by living in this particular place.

Yet, there was something about the way she’d said it that made it seem like a sort of spellbound rule  everyone here lived by. No sadness, no heartbreak. Or in Sherlock’s case, no bullying.

Never in his life would John have ever thought to connect a location with feelings like that. He shook his head to clear it of Vicki’s cryptic sayings, thinking he was probably reading way too much into it, and refocused on forming Juliet’s glassy, opal eyes on the page.

As soon as the sketch was done, he was going to send it to Harry along with a short letter he’d written. Before leaving, he promised her he’d write her telling her all about Sussex and the Holmes family and what it was like to live with “rich people,” as she put it.

From his peripheral vision, John saw the porch door slide open and a head of dark curls poke out.  A pleasant bubbling in his stomach began to stir – something that had begun to happen whenever Sherlock came up to him.

“John?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going into town today.”

“Oh . . .” He had been sitting on the porch swing waiting for Sherlock to finish getting dressed so they could get out onto the fields. His heart sunk just a bit knowing he’d have to spend the day entertaining himself. He had come to really enjoy spending time with Sherlock during their lessons. The rest of the time, he pretty much disappeared off to who knows where, and John only saw him at meals. But those hours they spent side by side on horseback were some of the best in his life.

He forced a strained smile onto his face, hoping his disappointment didn’t show too much. “Alright then.”

Sherlock looked at him puzzlingly. “You don’t want to come?”

John perked up instantaneously, like a dog who had just heard the word “park.”

“You want me to go with you?””

“Of course.” He looked down and smiled cheekily as he buttoned up his sleeves. “I like company when I go out, and you haven’t ever seen Sussex outside the manor. . . What do you say?”

Something about the way he asked told John that he most definitely did not usually prefer company on his outings.

“God, yes!” John stopped himself from leaping out of the swing.  _ Just stand up normally . . . don’t look like an idiot _ , he coached himself. He fleetingly wondered why he was suddenly so concerned with how he looked in front of Sherlock, but pushed the thought out of his mind. He was  _ finally _ about to leave the property for the first time since he’d arrived.

Although the grounds were lovely, he had to admit he was yearning to see more than just these these walls.

**********

The driver rolled down the streets of a quaint little village and pulled up onto the side of a curb. John and Sherlock climbed out when it stopped.

“So he’s just going to wait there for us?” John asked, looking back at the driver as Sherlock began to lead the way.

“He might drive around. Make some circles,” he replied casually, not thinking anything of it. “But yes, he’ll be waiting until we’re done.”

John wasn’t sure how he felt about someone waiting on him with absolutely nothing to do for hours.

Soon, they approached a buzzing marketplace. Little shops and cottages were planted snugly along the road. Barrels and carts of food were rolled around and sold to by-passers.  Small circles of people stood on various corners of the streets, filling the air with mindless chatter while children ran around their ankles. People bustled in and out of shops. The harmonious tinkling of wind chimes echoed all around them as doors were opened and closed, welcoming new customers.  

John stepped out of the way just in time as a man with a rolling cart of oranges zoomed by him.

The whole thing was somehow very peaceful and charming – like a scene taken directly from a period film (much like the manor).

He followed Sherlock, sticking close to his side as he gazed wide-eyed at every trinket shop and eatery they passed. On his left, two children sword fought with rolled up parchment in the streets. There seemed to be no concern about cars to all the people chatting in the roads without a care. The most dangerous vehicle to drive down it was a golf cart driven by a jolly old man, who handed out candy to a group of kids. On his right, two older women sat in rocking chairs next to a cart full of flowers.

“John.” Sherlock pulled his arm so he wouldn’t get trampled by the sword-fighting kids. “I need to stop by in that restaurant to return some money to the owner.”

Over his shoulder was a small Italian place called “Angelo’s.”

“Return money?”

“I got him off a murder charge.”

“Oh! Wow, uh . . .”

“By proving he was in another part of town carjacking,” he added with a smirk.

John chuckled uncomfortably.

“He tried to pay me, but I won’t accept. The free meals he gives me whenever I go there are more than enough. That, and his eagerness to jump to task if I ever need a favor.”

“That’s, um . . . wow.”

“You stay here, alright? Or relatively around this area. Don’t get lost.”

John snorted. “I’ll be fine, Sherlock. I’m not two.”

With that, Sherlock twirled on his heal and headed towards the restaurant. When he was gone, John wandered back over the old women sitting between carts and carts of flowers. Every shape, color, and variety one could think of surrounded them in a sweet smelling rainbow.

“Looking to buy something for your sweetheart, dear?” one of them asked.

“What? Oh, no. I’m just looking.” He lifted his head and gazed back towards the Angelo’s restaurant, where Sherlock had disappeared. That bubbly feeling had made a reappearance in his stomach when she said “sweetheart.”

“I’m sure she’d love a nice pink bundle of peonies!”

“Yeah, no thanks,” he said with a polite smile. How would someone like Sherlock react to a bouquet of flowers? Probably turn his nose up at the pointless gesture. Or maybe he’d be the kind to stammer and blush, since it’s likely no one had ever bought him any before. He found himself tracing the delicate, pink petals with the tip of his finger, wondering what it’d be like to see his cheeks redden and flush because of something he’d done –

_ Now where the hell did that thought come from? _

He followed the semi-circle of flowers surrounding the women, stopping to inspect each species that caught his eye, and reading the little cards underneath about their symbolism. It was almost amusing. Who would put this much time into putting together a bouquet that had such a complex meaning? Why not just pick up a handful of ones that look pretty and smell nice? It’d save a bunch of time anyway . . .

The sound of malicious laughter from behind him disturbed his thoughts.

Four boys were gathered over in the spot he and Sherlock were standing before they separated. Upon taking a few steps closer, he realized one of them was most definitely Sherlock. There was no mistaking that tall, lanky figure, or those wild curls. And who the hell else would wear formal button-downs in the heat of the summer.

The three other boys had surrounded him in a half-circle.

John walked closer and realized they didn’t appear to be engaging in friendly chatter. One of them, a scrawny blonde kid, cackled with glee as his face contorted into a nasty sneer. The boy next to him looked like the human version of a boulder – tall and wide with rock-like muscles. The third one, a brown-haired kid who appeared to be the leader of the pack, stood front and center with a self-satisfied smirk, his arms crossed confidently over his chest.

Sherlock, meanwhile, stood with his hands sheepishly in his pockets, looking like a lost puppy surrounded by wolves. He seemed to be caught between glaring at them and staring at the floor in shame.

Anger boiled in John’s chest as he stormed towards them and began to hear their taunts.

“. . .while you hold him down. He’d like that, wouldn’t he, Seb?” said the brown-haired boy. The large, rocky one grunted in response. “It’d be the only action he’s gotten in his life.”

The small, blonde boy clutched his stomach and snickered cruelly. Whatever they’d just said had made Sherlock’s face turn scarlet. Yet it seemed he was trying to appear unaffected. But John could see the façade beginning to crack with the twitches in his temple and tremble of his lip.

“Hey, hey Jim!” piped the blonde. He sounded an awful lot like a chipmunk going through puberty five years late. “Tell him the thing about his mum! Remember?”

The brown-haired boy called Jim rolled his eyes like the blonde was a nuisance cramping his style. “Victor, that joke was over a year ago.” He turned his attention back to Sherlock. “But still stands true. Did your family ever buy that cage for her? I heard fat pigs get wild around this time of year. Might want to contain her.”

Sherlock lifted his head from where he had been keeping it hidden towards the ground, his face twisted into a scowl. John had had enough. He marched right up and stood next to Sherlock, his shoulder overlapping his in a subtle gesture of protection.

“Hey, Sherlock. Everything alright here?” he asked, staring directly at Jim.

“John,” Sherlock breathed, seemingly embarrassed that he’d caught him in such a situation, but at the same time grateful that he’d dared to approach.

“Well, well. Who’s this?” asked Jim, curiously sizing him up.

“Never mind. Who the hell are you?” he shot back.

Jim seemed both impressed and entirely unfazed by his strength. His lips curled up into a slow, menacing smile.

“Jim Moriarty. An old friend of Sherlock’s. ‘John,’ was it? How cute.”

“Doesn’t seem much like you were friends,” he said, looking at each of them like they were dirt scraped off the bottom of his shoes.

Sherlock tugged lightly on his sleeve. “John, don’t. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, Sherlock. These dickheads have no right to talk to you like that.”

The large, rocky boy called Seb growled and cracked his knuckles.

“No need, Seb,” Jim said, touching his arm lightly before turning back to John. “I was just telling Sherlock how much I’m looking forward to seeing him around this summer.”

“By insulting his mum?”

Jim’s eyes darkened. “Listen, Johnny boy. I don’t know what obligation you feel towards that freak, but you’ll want to consider not sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. You might come to . . . regret it.”

“Ooh, was that a threat? Tell me, are you going to carry it out with or without your bodyguard on hand?” he asked, tilting his head towards Seb. “Because you seem like the kind of coward who’d lose all his confidence without him covering your arse.”

Sherlock gasped softly at his words. John wasn’t sure if it was out of respect for his insults or fear of the consequences.

“Now, really!” Jim exclaimed, clutching his chest theatrically in some sort of overdramatic act. “I don’t care much for your lack of manners Johnny boy. My, my. We were just  _ talking _ !”

“Yeah? Well, don’t.” John pulled on Sherlock’s arm. “Come on, Sherlock.” He marched away furiously, pulling Sherlock along by force. In the corner of his eye, he didn’t miss Jim calmly stopping Seb from pummeling them. Something about the knowing grin on his face left John feeling incredibly unsettled.

But whatever uneasiness he felt was buried deep beneath his seething rage. When they were far enough away from the boys, John stopped at a lamppost to catch his breath, fully aware that he was practically foaming at the mouth.

“You . . . you shouldn’t have done that,” Sherlock said.

“How do you know them?” he asked. His voice was practically a growl, but at the moment he couldn't control himself.

“Jim is . . . he’s dangerous. He’ll -,”

“ _ How _ , Sherlock?!”

He heard him swallow thickly. “S-School.”

“No, you don’t. Your mum told me she moved you away from London to escape guys like them.”

He looked up, hoping Sherlock wouldn’t be angry that Vicki had shared all of this with him. But all he saw in Sherlock’s face was complete, unabashed, shock and marveling wonder.

“I . . . Jim went to school with me back in London. His aunt lives in Sussex though, and during the summer, the three of them . . .” he trailed off. “John,” he breathed. “I haven’t – no one’s ever-,” he swallowed thickly again. “No one’s ever done . . .  _ that _ before. I – That was, um . . . good.”

John stared up into Sherlock’s face, which was practically glowing in worship, and his heart broke for him. He thought of everything Vicki had told him. How Sherlock had been bullied so viciously that his family had had to relocate. And now, he still had to deal with it during the summers, when Jim came to stay with his aunt, apparently. He doubted Vicki knew about this, or else he no doubt he would’ve heard about it by now.

John shook his head in disbelief. “Why do you let them, Sherlock? Why don’t you at least talk back?” As soon as the words left his mouth, John knew it was a dumb question. Obviously one would be reluctant to retort nasty taunts with a guy like Seb on standby. But the answer that came out of Sherlock’s mouth was not what he expected, and shattered his heart even further.

“Because they’re right.”

“I . . . what?”

“I am a freak. A weirdo. Everything that they call me. It’s all true.”

John clenched his eyes shut and shook his head in fury. “Sherlock, listen to me.” He waited until Sherlock lifted his eyes to meet his. “You’re  _ none _ of those things, okay? You’re not a freak. You’re brilliant. You’re not a weirdo. You’re extraordinary. So what if you’re different? They probably wish they could do what you can do.”

Sherlock opened and closed his mouth, blinking rapidly. John would’ve thought it was kind of cute if he wasn’t preoccupied with the raging blood still pounding in his ears. 

“Thank you,” Sherlock said. His mind seemed to be short-circuiting, and it was all he could think of to say.

He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s what friends do, right? Look out for each other.”

“I’ve never . . . had a  _ friend _ before.” He said the word like it was foreign to his tongue. 

John smiled gently. “Well, I’m glad I can be your first one then.”

Something softened in Sherlock’s eyes, and he looked at him as if for the first time. Then, slowly, his face cracked into a wide grin, his eyes bright and glistening.

John noticed for the first time that his aquamarine irises seemed to be speckled with multiple colors. He allowed his gaze to flicker back and forth between them in admiration for a moment, before realizing Sherlock was also staring directly into his eyes. He pulled his gaze away with difficulty, feeling his face redden in embarrassment.

“So,” he said, clasping his hands together, trying to surpass the moment. “Got someone off a murder charge, eh? Care to elaborate?”

Sherlock chuckled deeply. John listened to his tale in silent reverence as they continued walking through the market. And if their hands brushed against each other more than a few times while they strolled side by side, well, then that was alright with him. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First thing: I know it's unlikely he would canter that early, but I sort of wanted to fast forward through the teaching process so I could get back to the plot :) Also, I've never taken lessons, so disclaimer for everything I get wrong from here on out! (I did my best to research through articles and Youtube videos) 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

Each day, John grew more and more fond of Sherlock. On more than one occasion, he found himself sharing things with him he'd never felt comfortable sharing with anyone before. He also occasionally caught himself watching his nimble fingers working the saddle belts, or losing himself in his rich voice as he explained and deduced everything in their path – completely and utterly captivated by his charisma and effortless charm.

Their days were spent on horseback, their time filled with excursions and laughter. Always together, always a unit.

John finally finished the sketch of Juliet he’d been working on. He dug the letter out of his back pack and went down to the kitchen, where he found a man he'd never seen before talking to Vicki.

They were standing close together by the sink, their joined hands swinging gently between them. Vicki ducked her head and laughed as the man watched her with familiar, twinkling eyes.

“Oh, John!” Vicki exclaimed, when she saw him hovering in the archway. “Come, come! Meet my husband, William.”

“So this is the famous John?” The man stuck his hand out, and John shook it firmly. He had a deep, velvety voice that sounded a lot like Sherlock’s, and the same bright, speckled eyes.

“Yes, hi.”

“Glad to finally meet you. I’ve been in South Korea. On business, you understand.”

Vicki fixed up William’s tie and stood on her tip-toes to peck a kiss on his mouth. “And now, of course, he’s off to work. As soon as he comes home from a month of travel, he’s back out the door again.”

“Oh, Victoria. You know if it was up to me, I’d never spend a moment away from you.” A warm smile and a look of utter devotion and fondness passed between them. John felt a tightness in his chest trying to remember the last time he’d seen his parents interact this way.

“What’s that you’ve got?” Vicki asked, looking down at the envelope in his hand.

“Oh, it’s a letter for my sister. I promised I’d write.”

“Ah. And how is little Harriet?” William asked.

John was surprised he’d remembered her name. “Not so little anymore,” he said with a smile. “She’s thirteen now, and very intelligent for her age.”

“Good lord! When I last saw her, she could fit in my arms!”

If William had seen Harry as a newborn, John would’ve been five years old at the time. Old enough to retain some vague, fuzzy memories, yet he had absolutely no recollection of ever seeing or hearing about the Holmes family before the incident at the school.

“If you give me that letter, John, I can mail it for you on my way to work.”

John smiled appreciatively and handed him the envelope.

“Er, Mr. Holmes,” he started, feeling incredibly self-conscious all of a sudden. “How do you guys know my parents?”

Vicki and William looked at each other curiously before turning back to him.

“Have they never told you?”

John shook his head.

“Well, that’s quite understandable. If Todd Watson ever held firm to anything, it was his pride,” William said with a twinkle in his eye before Vicki reprimanded him with a gentle slap to the arm.

“Apologies,” he said. “Alright. You see, Todd and I knew each other at school. Same year. If you don’t mind me saying, he was something of a bully back then. No offense to you of course, John.”

“Oh, non-taken,” John said quickly, when Vicki glared at William. “Yeah, nothing much has changed in that department,” he added with a bit of unconcealed contempt in his voice.

“Now, John,” Vicki said sternly. “You shouldn’t go saying things like that about your father.”

He shrugged one shoulder awkwardly, looking at William to continue.

“We never talked much, Todd and I. I preferred to stay clear of his path for obvious reasons. But you see, one day in our last year before university, I had the pleasure of making him look foolish in front of his gang when they tried picking on one of my friends. He didn’t like that one bit, so he followed me home after school. He left his back pack and skateboard in an alley by a building so he could run more easily, and had me cornered in a lot within minutes.”

John shamefully lowered his eyes and shook his head in anger. He didn’t think it was possible, but William seemed to have made him hate his father even more than he already did.

“He didn’t beat on me or anything like that. Just verbal taunts. Perhaps he was warming me up. But we’ll never know what would have happened because the next instant, we heard police sirens heading down the street. We both took a run for it and separated. However, the next day, Todd was arrested because his back pack and skateboard were found by the shop that had been robbed. I decided to go into the police station and vouch for him.”

“You what?!”

“Well, I knew he was innocent. He wasn’t at the shop at the time it was robbed. He was with me.”

“But he was about to beat you up!”

“I’d get beat up before I let an innocent man be locked away, John. I saved your dad from arrest and expulsion. I believe he was so grateful he kept his head down the rest of the year and did not participate in his gang’s antics anymore.”

“Did he thank you?”

“Well, he didn’t want to be seen hanging around me at school. So although he ignored me, we still had a sort of understood connection. The day we graduated, he came up to me and properly showed his gratitude.”

John scoffed and rolled his eyes. It sounded exactly like his dad to be so cowardly he could only thank him once his image was no longer at risk.

“Don’t look like that, John. Your father is a good man. Since we finished school, we have used each other for connections and occasional favors when needed. Never in my life have I regretted my choice.”

“Why? You don’t owe him anything anymore. If anything, he owes you.”

“He owes me nothing. I told him if he ever needed anything, he could always reach out to me, and I would do the same.”

John still did not understand why William would care to keep contact with someone who was a jerk to him and his friends in school. Vicki gently chimed in to help.

“People can change and mature throughout life, John. My husband chooses to see the good in everyone. You should try doing the same.”

John thought it would be a cold day in hell before he saw his father as a good man.

**********

John weaved through the hallways and up several staircases. He was proud to say he could now maneuver himself through the manor without getting lost. He turned into his room to find Sherlock standing by his bedside, his back turned to him. That fluttering feeling in his stomach began to stir until he realized what he was doing.

“Sherlock . . .”

Sherlock whirled around, mortified, and lowered John’s sketchbook as if that would do anything to hide his crime.

“John! I was just-”

A million emotions flew through John’s head - anger, betrayal, and shock among them. He never showed his sketchbook to anyone. Not even Harry could look in it, save for the few pictures he had chosen to show her. And here was Sherlock, flipping through it like it was a newspaper. Not only did the violation of his privacy sting; he also found himself feeling embarrassed. He knew he wasn’t the best artist, but it was something he loved to do. Something he preferred to keep private and close to his heart. 

“Sherlock, what the  _ fuck _ ?!” he yelled, storming up and snatching the book back. “Why were you going through my stuff?”

“I was looking for you in here and saw it poking out of your bag. I got curious because I’d seen you with it before and . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was a sketchbook. I thought it was some kind of diary maybe –,”

“Oh, so you thought you’d have a peek in my diary then?”

“No, I . . . I’m sorry, I just -,”

“No, I don’t want to hear you excuses, Sherlock! I thought we were friends!”

“We are!” Sherlock faltered backwards slightly, looking extremely hurt.

“Friends don’t  _ snoop through each other’s things _ !!”

“You snuck into the stables when you saw me riding Selene.”

John opened and closed his mouth. “Alright. Not exactly the same as taking something out of someone else’s back pack, but fair enough.”

He looked down at the sketchbook in his hands. Although Sherlock had just greatly betrayed his trust, he hoped he’d at least liked his drawings. His stomach churned with embarrassment imagining Sherlock quirking his eyebrow in judgement of his abilities.

But looking back up, John figured he couldn’t possibly feel more mortified than Sherlock did standing there in front of him. He released a resigned breath and ran a hand through his hair.

“So . . .” Sherlock began, looking extremely anxious. “We’re not friends anymore?”

“What? No, of course we are! Just . . . don’t do it again, okay? That’s really not on.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” John walked over and stood directly in front of Sherlock, waiting for him to lift his lowered head to meet his gaze. When he did, he looked pointedly into his eyes, once again flickering between them admiring the rainbow-speckled irises that seemed to contain the entire universe. “Friends also forgive each other,” he said lowly. “Okay?”

Sherlock nodded, but his eyes still darted down to the book.

“If you’d just asked, I would’ve shown you,” John said, resisting the smile tugging at the corner of his lip.

“May I?”

“Fine,” he said, pretending to still be somewhat angry, but finding that he didn’t care so much anymore. Sharing this part of himself with Sherlock felt as easy as telling him the truth about what happened with Harry. 

He flipped open to a messy sketch of a tree with a wooden swing hanging from it. “That hung in my favorite park as a child. I practically lived on it.”

Sherlock didn’t respond. He flipped a few more pages and showed him a frail looking woman reading a book by a window. Her eyes seemed worn, her skin withered, her thinning, wispy hair cascading down her back. 

“That’s my mum.” John shrugged. “I know they’re not great, but I find it relaxing, so-”

“They’re beautiful,” Sherlock said, as though stating a mundane fact. “You’re an exceptional artist.”

Warmth blossomed in John's chest, and he lowered his face to hide his smile and reddening cheeks.

“Thanks.”

“Follow me.”

Sherlock took John’s arm and led him across the hall into his bedroom. He’d never been inside it before. It somehow was exactly what he’d imagined it would be, but better - not that he’d been wondering what Sherlock’s bedroom looked like.

Posters of historical figures and scientists lined the far wall. A dirty, smudged white board was mounted by his desk, filled with equations and statistics. Every surface was covered with papers, books, and knick knacks. On his desk was what appeared to be a chemistry set, cleaned and kept in pristine condition. Although not a single thing seemed to be in place, it somehow didn’t feel messy or cluttered. It was cozy . . . homey almost.

Sherlock cleared a space off a cushioned window seat and motioned for him to sit in it.

“It may surprise you, but I’m into the arts as well. So there’s no need for you to be embarrassed by your chosen hobby.”

“What? You?”

“Me,” he said with a smirk before kneeling down and fishing around under his bed. A second later, he pulled out a beautiful, glossy, red-brown violin, and an accompanying bow.

“No,” John breathed in disbelief. He shook his head at Sherlock’s proud grin and leaned back into the chair. “Well, go on then. Show me.”

Without breaking eye contact, he raised the violin up onto his shoulder and perched his chin over the pad.

Now  _ there _ was a sight to behold, John thought.

He lifted the bow and began playing the most beautiful serenade John had ever heard. It seemed almost impossible that the sweet, enchanting melody was being produced from just a hollow wooden box.  Never once did Sherlock’s eyes leave his own. They kept him enticed, engaged. When he leaned into his playing, John found himself leaning forward. When he straightened back up, John lifted his own chin to follow. 

As the last note faded out, he couldn’t even bring his hands up to applaud. Applause almost would have down played the masterwork he’d just witnessed. Sherlock’s playing deserved professional praise, articles, published reviews.

“Do you compose?” he blurted.

“I, um. Well, yes.” He scratched the back of his head with the bow nervously. “But I typically don’t perform original compositions for, er -,”

“Well, you saw my sketches. So it’s only fair if I get to hear your work, too.” John leaned back and braced his arms over the armrests, like he was waiting for a show to begin.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

John applauded quietly as he lifted his violin once again.

This time, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose. When he played, the music seemed to be coming from within him, not from the violin. The way he moved and swayed with each stroke of his bow – it was like the notes were inside his soul, and the instrument was merely a channel with which to share it with the world.

He began with a low, ominous note, and escalated to a quick, sporadic series of notes that were difficult to follow. It was too fast, almost stressful to hear – similar to the feeling of being in a crazy driver's passenger seat, fearing for his life as they sped and swerved through the streets almost crashing every other second. The whole thing was played in an eerie sounding minor key, adding an extra layer of uneasiness to the piece. Yet there was still something alluring about it. The notes seemed to be pulling him forward by his belt, hooking him in, keeping him on the edge, not wanting to miss a single note.

When John accepted that he was not in a car about to crash, he smiled and leaned back to enjoy Sherlock’s playing in its entirely. Sherlock was completely immersed in his music, and seemingly no longer aware that there was still someone else in the room.

John flipped his sketchbook to a blank page, pickup up a stray pencil from the floor, and began to outline his slim figure on the paper.

Glancing back and forth, he detailed his hair, his long, nimble fingers, every fold in his clothes. His rosy cheekbones, dark eyelashes, perfect Cupid bow’s lips.

As he shaded in the shadows and crevices of that ridiculously long neck, his mind wandered to the end of the summer - a topic that had been distressing him the past few days. What would happen when he had to go home and return to his normal life? He’d likely never see Sherlock again. Yes, they had become friends, but he couldn’t exactly be making trips up to Sussex every weekend to see him. Not when he had his future to start thinking about. 

John sighed internally, no longer trying to suppress the nagging voices in his mind. The moment had come for him to acknowledge why the thought of leaving Sussex left his stomach in knots; he liked Sherlock.  _ Like that _ . It seemed that he had from the moment he saw him on that horse all those days ago. It was time to stop pretending he didn’t know why his stomach fluttered every time he saw him, or why he was pleased to know he didn’t have (or want) a girlfriend, or why he pretended to need help with his saddle everyday so Sherlock would come and guide his hands through buckling the belt. 

His heart tore a little bit thinking of the moment he’d have to say goodbye once and for all. They hadn’t known each other for very long, but in the short few weeks he’d been here, Sherlock had somehow managed to wriggle his way into his heart and life and latch on permanently, like he was a missing piece that had always meant to be there.

_ Get a grip, John. It’s just a stupid crush,  _ he coached himself half-heartedly. But the attempt was weak at best. 

As he filled in the lines and shading of his plush, bottom lip, he didn’t even realize the music had stopped. Not until there were small puffs of breath at his ear. He looked up to find Sherlock standing behind the chair, looking over his shoulder.

He tried to snap the book shut in embarrassment, but Sherlock caught his wrist. Warmth spread up his arm and into his chest from the contact, instantly melting away his feelings of dread.

“Don’t,” came a vibrating, baritone purr directly in his ear. “It’s beautiful.”

John relaxed his grip on the edges of the book, feeling his face heat at the compliment.

“May I keep it?”

His mind and heart both told him to keep the sketch, as it would be one of the only tangible memories of this summer he’d still have after leaving, yet he found his hand acting of its own accord, gently tearing the page out inch by inch and handing it over.

Sherlock looked it over for a moment, treasuring it, before thanking him and setting it on his nightstand.

**********

Over the weekend, Sherlock took John back into town.

For a while, they wandered the market amicably. John waved at the two women by the flower carts he’d spoken to before. It seemed every familiar face was exactly where it had been before, like the marketplace was a picture from a storybook, and they had jumped back into it.

After awhile, they found themselves walking through a quieter part of town. The distant, bustling voices of the market had fallen behind them as they’d strolled away, munching on chips and heatedly debating the validity of jumpers. 

“They’re completely hideous, John! I don’t understand how anyone could willingly put one of those over-glorified wool rags on their body.”

“Well, when winter rolls around and you’re freezing your arse off, I’m sure looking all nice and posh will be of great comfort to you!” 

“I happen to own a very nice Belstaff.”

_ “I meant indoors!” _

_ “Well, what on earth are space heaters for?” _

All of a sudden, a loud voice and a commotion disturbed their dispute.

To their right, a young man was running with a small portfolio tucked under his arms. A girl about their age chased after him, catching the papers flying out behind him, but she was ultimately unable to keep up with his sprint. She slowed down in defeat, frantically looking around for anyone to help her.

“Stop that man!” she cried, pointing after him.

In a flash, Sherlock took off at a dead sprint, and John followed faithfully in pursuit. A car honked and slammed on the brakes as Sherlock leapt over the hood and continued down the middle of the road. John passed in front of it and gave a small wave of apology to the frazzled driver.  

He caught up with Sherlock, who had stopped at a fork in the road and was looking in both directions.

“I saw him go down the left,” John said, panting.

“Good for you.”

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and held his head, like he was trying to recall something. “Over here.” He pulled down a ladder on the side of the building next to them, pulled himself up, and climbed up to the the roof.

John took a moment to glare at the log-legged prat before jumping up to reach the ladder. It took a few tries, but finally he was able to pull himself up. By the time he reached the roof, Sherlock was already sprinting down the spiral staircase leading down the other side of the building. He followed, and found himself in a filthy alleyway.

“Where is-”

“He went down the road that will lead him exactly here. All we have to do is intercept at exactly the right moment.”

“And how will-”

“Just trust me.

At that moment, the sound of fast, approaching footsteps neared the opening of their alleyway.

“Oh, god he’s faster than I thought,” Sherlock breathed. He leapt over a pile of bricks on the ground, and tackled a garbage bin out into the street, taking a man down with him.

The top of the bin opened, and hordes of filth spilled out onto him, from where he lay trapped under its weight.

“John, get the portfolio!” Sherlock cried, as he struggled to keep the man pinned down under the bin.

John wrestled it out from underneath his arm, trying his best to keep it clean and not lose any papers. The man seemed to find a weak spot in the distribution of weight on top of him, and wriggled himself free. Sherlock swiped at his ankle, but he had already taken off sprinting down the road, disappearing around a corner in a flash.

Sherlock straightened up and dusted himself off. John had no idea how he’d managed to not get any trash on him.

“Should we go after him?”

“Don’t bother,” he said, fixing his hair. “We got the portfolio back. That’s what matters.”

John leaned back against the alley wall and caught his breath. When Sherlock joined him a second later, he couldn’t hold back a fit of high-pitched giggles bubbling forth from his mouth.

“That was ridiculous,” he breathed. “That was the most ridiculous thing . . . I’ve ever done.”

Sherlock smiled radiantly and joined him in a fit of deep, rumbling chuckles, full of a warmth and sincerity John had never heard from him before. A familiar heat blossomed in his chest and spread throughout him, and in that moment, in a filthy alleyway with Sherlock, there was nowhere else in the world he’d have rather been.

After they caught their breath, they did their best to clean up the trash they’d spilled (at John’s insistence), and made their way back to the girl, who was standing in the same spot they’d left her.

She was definitely their age or possibly a few years younger, John concluded as they approached her. She wore a white lab coat and had her long, brown hair tied up in a tight ponytail.

“Here you go, miss,” Sherlock said to her back, handing out the portfolio.

She squeaked and whirled around to face them. “Oh, thanks,” she said breathlessly, taking it from him.

She flipped through the papers inside rapidly, before closing it back up and sighing in relief.

“All good?”

“Yes, thank goodness.” She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and stuck her hand out to Sherlock.

“I’m Molly.”

“Sherlock,” he said, shaking her hand.

John interjected to introduce himself, and shook her hand as well.

“Did you know that guy?” he asked.

“Oh he’s . . .” she waved her hand dismissively. “We work together at a lab a while away from here.”

“Why did he try to steal your stuff?”

“I guess . . . he was maybe a bit jealous,” she humbly, uncomfortably twirling a strand of her hair. “I'm only an intern and I was getting ahead of him. Maybe he wanted to sabotage my work so I’d fall behind and he’d regain the boss's favor. Who knows.”

“What an ass,” John said.

“Yes, well. I never liked him much anyway.” She shrugged and smiled at them appreciatively. “Thank you both. I don’t know what I’d do if I’d lost these.” 

They said their goodbyes and separated down the road. Looking up at the darkening sky, Sherlock and John decided to start making their way back to the market.

When they were nearer, festive music caught their ears. A small crowd was forming around a group of street dancers. They wormed their way through the crowd and and found an empty spot to stand and watch. The dancers spun, flipped, and bent in positions John was sure the human body was not meant to be in. Yet they pulled it off such effortless elegance that he could not help but pull his sketchbook out from inside his cardigan and capture the moment. While he was here, he might as well try to collect as many memories in his sketches as possible. 

When the music stopped, Sherlock stepped forward to pitch some cash into their bucket. John stood back for a bit, trying his best to fill in the rest of the shading on one dancer’s leg as quickly as he could. The rest, he could commit to memory and finish later. 

“Almost done,” he mumbled to Sherlock, who was waiting patiently by him as the crowd dispersed. When they were the last ones standing in the area, someone knocked into John’s shoulder, and he dropped his sketchbook. 

“Oi!” he yelled.

He looked up, and standing in front of them were Jim, Sebastian, and Victor. He glared at them and reached down to pick up his sketchbook, but Jim kicked it into the mud. The filth instantly seeped through the layers of open pages, soiling them beyond repair. Years of hard work and memories - destroyed in an instant.

“No!”

Beside him, Sherlock was seething with barely contained rage. Jim’s lip twisted up into a cruel smile, while his eyes remained cold and dead.

“You want to call your fat, piggy mum to fish it out for him, Sherlock? I’m sure she’d feel right at home.”

Without warning, John launched forward and tackled Jim by the waist.

“John, no!” Sherlock yelled as the two of them tumbled to the ground in front of him.

Straddling Jim’s waist, John pounded his fist into his nose as hard as he could, producing a loud, sickening crack. Warm blood exploded onto his fist as he punched again. And again.

Suddenly, he was lifted by the back of his shirt like he weighed nothing. He kicked and struggled, but couldn’t wriggle free of Seb’s grip. In front of him, Sherlock and Victor untangled themselves from each other, looking mildly tousled.

Jim collected his dignity and stood up, slowly wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand with a murderous glint in his eyes.

Sherlock was panting on his hands and knees, a deadly scowl on his face as he looked up at Jim.

“Well?” Jim asked mockingly. “Go on, then. Your little friend showed you how it’s done. Should be no task for you.” He leaned down towards Sherlock’s face. “Hit me.”

Sherlock glared, but didn’t move. Meanwhile, John struggled harder than ever, but Seb’s iron-tight grips on his shirt and hair remained firm.

“Go on, Sherlock.” He tilted his face, offering up his cheek. “Hit me.”

“Sherlock, n—!”

The rest of his protest was cut off by Seb wrapping a meaty arm around his throat, constricting his airways.

“Please hit me?” Jim batted his eyes dramatically. “I promise I’ll return the favor. I know you loved it last time.”

Something seemed to have triggered in Sherlock, and it looked like he was bracing himself to launch forward.

John clawed and scratched at Seb’s arm, desperately trying to stretch his chin up to breathe.

Before Sherlock could even so much as rise up onto his knees, Jim knocked him flat on his back with a forceful kick. When he tried to rise up again, he stomped on his chest, pushing him back down. 

John mustered up every bit of strength he had and elbowed Seb in the gut as hard as he could. It didn’t have much effect, given his enormous size, but in that split second when he was still recovering from the shock, John pulled himself free and tackled Jim again.

This time, Sherlock and Seb both dove into the grapple, each trying to defend their friend and themselves at the same time. Meanwhile, Victor hovered nervously around the edge, egging his mates on like a coward. Though John couldn’t blame him. He was the weakest and smallest of them all, and definitely would have gotten his neck snapped in half.

There was no telling whose fist was whose, who had just kneed him in the ribs, or whose face his foot had kicked. He couldn’t even tell if his priority was to protect Sherlock or cause as much physical damage to Jim as possible. All he knew was that his insides were boiling over with rage, and he just had to keep punching, keep kicking, keep fighting.

Suddenly a voice was shouting at them to knock it off. An adult’s voice. But not a single fist stopped flying.

A pair of large hands grasped him by the back of his collar and hauled him up off the ground, along with the other three boys. Sweating and bleeding, John looked up into the face of three angry police officers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate all the feedback and comments from you guys! I wish you could see the little happy wiggle dance I do in my chair every time I get a new one! :D


	5. Chapter 5

Sherlock and John sat side by side in the living room, with Sherlock holding an ice pack to his bruising eye while John dabbed at his bloody lip.

In front of them, Vicki paced back and forth, speaking urgently into the phone.

“Yes . . . I understand, Angie . . . Yes, I’m so sorry . . . No, not from what I’ve seen . . . Todd, please, try to understand . . .”

John sat slumped low in his seat, glaring fixedly at a point on the far wall and trying his best to ignore Sherlock’s leg bouncing anxiously beside him. He could hear his parents yelling furiously on the other end of the phone, and although he could not make out what they were saying, he got the general gist; he was the most horrible son they ever could have hoped to get landed with, they wished he’d never been born, and he was a burden on whatever glorious reputation they thought they had . . . and of course, it was now all Vicki's fault. 

He closed his eyes and shook his head to himself as he heard his dad’s voice bellowing so loud that Vicki had to hold the phone a few inches away from her ear.  

He dropped his gaze to the floor in shame. He knew he was going to have to leave. His parents were going to demand that they send him back immediately, since staying with the Holmes’ clearly wasn’t doing anything to improve his “disciplinary issues.” It’d be easier for everyone if they just let him live out his life as an inevitable juvenile delinquent and bring shame to the family. And there was no doubt his dad wanted to get in a good beating or two while his anger was still fresh. 

“I assure you . . .  Todd, please leave my son out of the matter if you will . . . No, it’s not . . .”

John remained still, but lifted his gaze to look at Vicki. He'd never seen her so stressed out before, or without a friendly twinkle in her eye. Her white hair was falling out of her already loose bun as she paced the room. The smile lines etched into her skin that normally gave her face a youthful glow now made her look worn and withered.  A horrible weight sunk into him knowing he was the reason she was in such a state.

“That’s . . . Angie, please listen . . . No, that’s not the story I heard . . . Yes, I’m aware.”

With each moment Vicki spent pleading with and pretending to listen to his parents, his hatred for them piled heavier and heavier inside him until he was burning with it.

At last Vicki wrapped up the conversation, hung up the phone, and placed it back on the receiver. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, taking a few steadying breaths. Finally, she turned to face the boys, both hands on her hips. Although she looked too drained for the stance to appear accusatory.

“I’ll go pack then,” John mumbled as he rose from his chair, deciding to beat her to the chase.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” she snapped. Immediately, he was back in his seat, as if he had been physically pulled. He’d never heard her speak so sharply before, and it stung to be on the receiving end of such a voice.

She steadied herself with a few more deep breaths, and when she spoke again, her voice bore a closer resemblance to the warm woman he’d come to know.

“Your parents are very,  _ very _ angry with you, John. And very disappointed. But . . . they will let you stay.”

Somehow, instead of easing his worries, the words only added to the red hot fury inside him, bubbling higher and higher to the surface.

“They probably just don’t want to deal with me, right?”

Vicki didn’t reply, but her worn eyes and resigned sigh told him everything he needed to know.

“So, things got a little rough, and they decided I’m a problem to dump on someone else’s doorstep? That it’s easiest for them if they can go as long as possible without seeing me?”

Something softened in Vicki's eyes. “John,” she began softly, cautiously reaching out to console him. “What you have to understand about your parents is-”

But what he had to understand, he’ll never know. He dodged her outstretched arm and stomped away, angry tears burning in his eyes. He made a show of storming all the way up to his room and kicking the door shut with his foot, even though once he was past the living room, there was no one to see it.

For a while, he just stood with his forearm braced against the wall, and his forehead resting against it facing the ground. With no sketchbook and no way to channel his anger, he really didn’t know what to do except wait for himself to calm down. All he knew was that if his dad were here, he’d wrap his hands around his meaty neck and squeeze as hard as he could. Give him a taste, just a small sampling of what he’d put him through growing up. Watch his face turn red and then purple. Watch his eyes go wide until he was on the verge of passing out. . . and then leave him. Show him how it feels to be abandoned by those who are supposed to stand by your side through thick and thin – what it’s like to be treated as a burden for someone else to deal with.

If it wasn’t for the fact that he was a guest at the manor, he’d have punched through the wall until his fists bled. But he had just enough self-control left in him to refrain from doing anything that might damage the Holmes’ property.

He stayed hidden up in his room throughout the evening, watching the sky gradually darken through his window, and prolonging the moment when he’d have to face Sherlock and Vicki again after his little display. No one sent Wallace to fetch him for dinner, and he was grateful for that. At least they understood that if he didn’t make an appearance by his own free will, he obviously wanted to be left alone. 

Hours later, when the sky was black and John was lying flat on his bed staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, he heard a gentle knock at the door. When he didn’t respond, the door cautiously creaked open.

There was a lingering pause, when his visitor probably wanted him to react to their presence, but he didn’t. Quiet footsteps approached the bed, and a tall, dark silhouette blocked the light from hitting his face.

John still deliberately remained motionless, staring blank-faced at a chosen spot on the ceiling and wondering whether the person would bother with his stubbornness or get fed up and leave. He found that he himself wasn't sure which of the two options he would prefer. When he refused to speak after several seconds, he heard a deep sigh, and felt a dip in the bed.

“You know,” came a familiar voice. “I didn’t grow up with the most loving family members either.” At the sound of the voice, his spirits lifted in the slightest amount, and he instantly knew which option he had secretly been hoping for. 

“Oh please,” he grumbled, finally pulling himself out of his melancholy trance.  “Your mother is the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met,” he said somewhat bitterly. “And I’ve only met your dad once, but he’s not all that bad either.”

“I’m not talking about them.”

Finally, John rolled his head on the bed to look at Sherlock, who was perched on the side looking straight ahead.

“Your brother?” he asked.

Sherlock hummed in confirmation. John sat up and shifted so they were sitting side by side on the bed. He noticed that down in Sherlock’s lap was a plate with a biscuit topped in gravy, and a few thin slices of roast beef.

“Thanks,” he said sheepishly, taking the plate from him. All of a sudden, he felt like he hadn’t eaten in days. He began cutting the roast beef with the fork and knife and stuffing the pieces into his mouth like a starved man. “I don’t understand,” he said, through a mouthful. “Your mum and both my parents spoke highly of him.”

“Naturally. There’s nothing for adults to dislike about him. But growing up, he knew about my . . . situation. At school I mean.” John nodded in understanding. “And he gave me some rather damaging advice.”

“What advice?”

Sherlock’s lip thinned into a tight line before he continued. “That I shouldn’t let anything they say bother me because sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side.”

“Sentiment is . . . a what?”

“A defect. A human error. It would be easier for me if I didn’t let myself get involved with anyone. Not romantically, not as friends, colleagues . . . nothing.  Life is easier with no attachments one can use to emotionally manipulate you. According to him.”

The inside of John’s mouth had gone dry. Ever so slowly, he set the empty dinner plate aside on the nightstand, wanting to choose his next words very carefully.

“Did you believe him?”

“Of course. He was my big brother. But even so, never once did he console me when I came home in te -  erm . . . upset. I was only told patronizingly to shove it down and never allow myself to feel anything.”

“That’s a horrible way to go about life. There’s so much you miss out on if you never allow your heart to open or form relationships.”

“Yes.” Something in Sherlock’s voice made John turn to look at him fully. His eyes were glistening beautifully as he stared at him with something like dawning comprehension. “I realize that now,” he added in an almost whisper.

John’s mind flashed back to that day at the market, when Sherlock told him he’d never had a friend before. His heart simultaneously ached and swelled with affection and, did he dare say,  _ love _ for him.

“Sherlock,” he whispered, reaching out to touch the back of his hand. Sherlock glanced down at John’s hand on top of his, and then back up at him. His pupils were blown wide as his eyes darted back and forth between his own. His gaze was magnetic, pulling him inwards as if by force.

John dared to risk a glance downwards at his plush lips, still slightly swollen from the earlier fight. A tiny sliver of a pink tongue darted out to wet them, and his own tongue mimicked the motion. He lifted his gaze to find that Sherlock was no longer looking into eyes, but instead was staring down at his lips as well. His cheeks tinted a lovely rosy hue as he leaned in . . .

John’s eyes dazedly drifted closed.

When their lips touched it was like a blazing glow had bloomed inside of him. A pleasant buzz of electricity ran through his body, spreading down to his numbing fingers, and into each of his little toes. He tentatively lifted his hand to weave it into the curls right above Sherlock’s ear as their lips coyly moved around each other. Another surge of tingly warmth blossomed from the spot where the backs of Sherlock’s fingers just barely skimmed his cheek in something like a reverent caress.

He could feel his heart pounding as he sighed blissfully into Sherlock’s mouth and continued moving his lips slow, soft, hesitant strokes . . . His mind blank of all thoughts except the fact that he was kissing Sherlock Holmes. 

_ He was kissing Sherlock Holmes. _

And Sherlock Holmes was kissing him back.

After weaving their fingers together one by one, Sherlock sealed their lips again and rotated his torso so that they were fully facing one another. With just the slightest bit of pressure, he leaned forward. John took the hint and slowly reclined until he was lying flat on his back.

Sherlock braced himself over him, gently holding their interlaced hands down by his head, and kissed him with tender adoration. John worried he’d be able to feel his heart hammering wildly in his chest, or his pulse racing uncontrollably in his neck, but Sherlock gave no hint of noticing anything of the sort.

His head swam with dizziness as warm lips trailed across his jaw. Down below, Sherlock’s free hand slipped just under the hem of his shirt and skimmed his waistline modestly, causing goosebumps to spread up to his throat. He didn’t try to sneak higher or lower. He seemed content with just that slim sliver of bare skin as he lifted his head to kiss him properly once more.

John scratched lightly over his scalp with the hand that was still woven into his curls. Sherlock nearly purred and kissed him harder. He applied just the slightest amount of suction onto his bottom lip, and lingered for a long moment before pulling away. John’s head lifted of its own accord to follow the parting lips, his head buzzing with warmth.

Sherlock smiled adoringly down at him and leaned back down to brush their noses together, allowing them a moment to revel in what had just unfolded between them.

When their eyes finally met, their mouths simultaneously spread in unabashed, radiant smiles. A soft, breathy giggle escaped past John’s lips . . . and it was like a dam burst. Sherlock’s deep, rumbling chuckle followed, and they were both soon shaking in a fit of childish giggles.

“How long have you wanted to do that?” asked John, when they had settled down a bit.

“Since that day at the market when you stood up for me.” John smiled warmly and brushed a thumb over his cheek in response. “You?”

“I think when I met you in the stables for the first time. I’m not entirely sure. But I’ve wanted to for a long time.”

“Me too,” Sherlock added softly. After a moment, he whispered lowly, “Want to get out of here?”

A loving smile spread over John’s face as he whispered back, “Oh God yes.”

**********

Sherlock and John crept silently past the living room and through the ground floor hallways. John noticed a dim light peeking from underneath the door of the master bedroom.

“Oh, your mum’s awake,” he whispered. “I should apologize to her.” Sherlock yanked his arm roughly to keep him by his side.

“John, are you  _ insane _ ?” he hissed. “We’re sneaking out at midnight. You don’t stop in my parents’ bedroom to have a chat!”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” John replied, feeling stupid.

“Besides, there’s no need. She’s not angry with you. Just worried.”

They crept out through the back porch, sliding glass door closed as quietly as possible, and headed for the stables.

**********

John felt the weight of his parent’s neglect and disapproval being stripped away from him as he and Sherlock raced through the moonlit forest on horseback. He watched the silver fog swirling at Juliet’s ankles as they swerved through the blackened trees. Lifting his face to the night sky, he inhaled a lungful of crisp night air, allowing it to cleanse him of the lingering anger and resentment that had been clouding his mind.

John had initially protested the spontaneous night ride, thinking it was a bad idea. But whenever Sherlock had that particular gleam in his eye, he felt it was best not to argue too much.

“Sherlock?” he asked, still feeling the need to be quiet, even as they ventured deeper and deeper into the increasingly dense darkness. “Where are we going exactly?”

“You’ll see. We’re nearly there.” Sherlock’s voice sounded alarmingly loud in the still, nightly silence of the forest, even though he was speaking at his normal volume.

“Not sure if I like the sound of this.”

“Just trust me.”

Approximately ten minutes later, they rounded out into a small, rocky clearing, dismounted their horses, and tied the reins to adjacent low-hanging branches.

“Over here,” Sherlock said, his figure brightly illuminated by the moonlight, whose cast was no longer filtered through the dense bush of the treetops. He interlaced his fingers with John’s, offering him a gentle smile before pulling him along. John smiled and squeezed his hand in response, glad that they could finally do this – this casual intimacy of allowing himself to be guided by Sherlock’s hand intertwined with his.

He led him a bit further down the rocky surface until John realized he was looking over the edge of a small cliff. Down below was a circular body of water. Its black, shimmering surface was streaked with vibrant stripes of violet, indigo, and silver reflected from the moon. The water stretched out far beyond them, outlined by the bushy, black silhouette of the forest surrounding it. The entire perimeter was lightly covered in the same, silvery mist that had dusted the grounds of the forest behind them.

John stared wide-eyed at the scene in front of him for a good few minutes. “It’s . . . beautif – Oi! What are you doing?”

Next to him, Sherlock was halfway through unbuttoning his shirt.

“We’re standing on the edge of a cliff and there’s water below us. What do you think we’re doing?”

John shook his head and backed away from the edge. “No, no, no, no. I don’t think so.”

Sherlock grabbed his arm and stopped him from retreating any further. “Oh, yes you do. Go on. Strip.”

His pulse began to quicken as he rubbed the back of his neck in trepidation, still subconsciously shaking his head.

“Sherlock . . . I don’t like this.”

“Of course you don’t. But that’s why we’re here.”

“What do you mean.”

“You told me you were afraid of heights, did you not?”

“I . . .” His mind flashed back to that first day they had ridden their horses together, and he swore under his breath. “I did. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” he tried, but knew his wide-eyed stare at the cliff's edge gave him away.

“You’re going to conquer your fear, and we’re going to have fun doing it.”

“I . . .  _ why, _ Sherlock?!”

Sherlock shrugged and smirked at him. “Why not?”

“How would you like it if I tied you to a chair in an empty room and forced you to overcome your fear of boredom?!”

Sherlock chuckled patronizingly and passed behind him, brushing his hand over the back of his shoulders. “I’d like to see you try,” he mumbled in his ear.

John suppressed a shiver – from the breeze, of course - and thrust a pointed finger onto his chest. “Don’t push it, Sherlock. I’m warning you.”

Sherlock grinned and took a few steps backwards towards the cliff. He finished unbuttoning his shirt and slid it down and off his arms.

John swallowed and couldn’t help raking his eyes up and down his chiseled torso, washed pale from the moonlight. He quickly tore his eyes away, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and pointedly stared at the sky as he heard him undoing his belt and dropping his trousers. 

“Come on, John. You know you want to.”

“Sherlock, I really,  _ really _ don’t, okay?!”

He risked a glance at Sherlock again, and saw him standing before him, fully confident in being naked except for his boxers. He reached for John’s hand, but John pulled it away.

“Sherlock, I’m about two seconds away from putting you in a headlock. And you know I could do it, too.”

“You could. But you won’t,” he said smugly.

“I could turn around right now ride Juliet back to the house.”

“Again - You could, but you won’t.” He took John’s hands into his own again and began walking them to the edge of the cliff. “Don’t make me pull you in with me, John. I really don’t want to.”

“Sherlock,” he growled in warning, trying half-heartedly to pull out of his grip. 

He hated,  _ absolutely hated _ to admit it, but a part of him felt a much wanted thrill at the thought of jumping in. He had never done anything this spontaneous before, and partially yearned for the exhilaration of letting go of his irrational fear and just diving in. However, the other part of him, the more stubborn one, was willing to sacrifice the possible fun he could have if it meant Sherlock wouldn’t be proven right.

“I don’t want to have to do this,” Sherlock said as they grew nearer and nearer to the edge. “And you don’t want to have to ride home in dripping wet clothes.”

“You wouldn’t,” John said with all the confidence he could muster, although he was not sure if he really believed the statement himself - not when Sherlock had that look on his face. 

“Oh?” Sherlock asked, and yanked him forward roughly.

“No, no _–_ NO! Sherlock, stop! Let go! No _– FINE!!!”_ Instantly, he was released and pulled back to safety after being moments away from tumbling over the edge wrapped in a bear hug from a nearly-naked Sherlock.

“I swear,” he growled, wrestling his t-shirt off while Sherlock watched with unabashed glee. “You are the most  _ obnoxious _ . . .” He yanked his belt open. “ARSEHOLE!” He practically ripped his trousers off. “I have  _ ever _ met.” Kicking them the side to join his shirt, he muttered to himself, “I can’t believe . . .”

“Can’t believe what? That you kissed me barely an hour ago?”

“You kissed  _ me _ . And careful, or I’ll take it back.”

“You can’t take a kiss back.”

“Watch me.”

“I’d rather watch you jump.”

Sherlock took his hand and led him forward until they were both perched on the very edge of the cliff looking down.

“Erm . . . are you sure it’s safe?” he tried in a last attempt to wriggle out of this nightmarish situation. “Ponds typically aren’t all that deep.”

“This cliff isn’t all that high either. It’ll be like jumping off a diving board - which I now realize you've probably never done before. Don’t worry, it’s completely safe,” he added when John peered suspiciously over the edge. “I’ve done this plenty of times before. Ready?”

John squared up, lifting his chin in defiance of his fear. After a firm nod, they jumped at the same time, their hands remaining tightly linked all the way down.

He may have shouted as they fell – he wasn’t entirely sure. All he knew was that all the air seemed to be sucked out of his lungs, and his guts seemed to have risen up into his throat as the glassy, black surface of the water rose nearer and nearer.

They landed together with a heavy splash. The water wasn’t as cold as John predicted it would be, but the coolness still seeped deep into his flesh. A dense mass of bubbles swarmed up around him as he sunk, making it impossible to see even two inches in front of his face. He estimated the depth of the pond was somewhere around eight feet; deep enough to land without injury, but shallow enough that he could kick off the ground with ease and float back up to the surface.

His head rose up out of the water, and he gasped in a lungful of precious air, kicking and paddling to keep himself afloat. He had done it. He had jumped and survived. And as a result, he felt lighter than he ever had, giddy with glee, and absolutely high on adrenaline. 

A few feet away, Sherlock’s head breached the surface of the water. He threw his head back as if taking a bath, and swiped his flattened curls out of his face.

A breeze rushed past them, chilling John to the core due to his wet skin.

“You . . . are such an arse,” he said through chattering teeth, but he couldn’t deny that he was laughing harder than he had in months through his shivers and shudders.

“You’re welcome,” Sherlock said. “Let’s go over here. Bit more shallow.” They swam closer to the base of the cliff, and soon enough, John’s toes grazed the bottom enough that he didn’t have to constantly tread water to keep his head above the surface.

One he was comfortably standing, neck and shoulders above the water, he dunked under to wet his face and hair again in attempt to keep warm from the chilly breezes.

Sherlock, waist deep right next to him, shook out his hair, spraying water everywhere.

“So, do you still hate me?” he asked.

“Yes,” John said, though not making any attempt to hide the massive grin stretching across his face. His heart was still hammering wildly from adrenaline and the exhilarating thrill of the fall.

Sherlock grinned smugly to himself and began finger-combing through his hair, trying to straighten out the tousled, tangled mess it had become.

John watched him in amusement as he tried to somewhat recreate his usual, perfectly-formed set of curls. He waited until he was nearly done before strategically splashing him, flattening all of his hair down onto his forehead again.

He snickered as Sherlock slowly parted his sopping wet bangs to reveal his murderous eyes.

“That’s payback, you git,” he said through laughter, not fazed in the slightest.

Then, something mischievous flickered in Sherlock’s eye, and the corner of his lip seemed to twitch almost undetectably. He lowered himself so that only his eyes and forehead remained above the surface. He glided through the water in one wide stroke, and was right next to John, who meanwhile remained in hysterics and unaware of his movement.

In the midst of his cackling, two large arms encircled his waist from behind, enveloping him in a bear hug.

“Hey!”

Holding his back tight against his chest, Sherlock scooped up a stream of water and dumped it onto John’s hair.

“Hey, stop it!” John protested as he struggled to escape Sherlock’s hold, but his attempts were useless, as he was considerably weakened by his laughter.

“Payback, huh?” Sherlock teased, tightening his hold around his midriff and playfully splashing more water into his face. “For what, exactly? Showing you a fantastic time?”

John summoned his superior strength to break free, and turned around to face him. The very next moment, Sherlock pulled him back in by the hips. John grasped his face between his palms and tugged him in to crash their lips together. They kissed like they had been doing it for one hundred years, like they already knew each other’s bodies and could anticipate the other’s every move. Their lips moved around each other in an effortless dance that had them both panting into each other’s mouths within minutes.

John carded his hand up into Sherlock’s damp hair, mindful of the tangles, tousling it up and curling his fingers over his scalp like he had when they kissed earlier. Sherlock parted their lips to sigh with desire, his eyes drooping closed in pleasure. John took the opportunity to trail kisses up to his cheekbone, taking a nip at his ear before moving back down nibble at the corner of his jaw.

After Sherlock had spent a few minutes basking in his scalp massage, he gripped John’s wrist and pulled it away. Dropping a quick kiss onto his palm, he pulled his face forward for another kiss. John lowered his hands to stroke around his slim waist while unreservedly devouring his lips.

Each wave of suction on his mouth sent John’s mind spiraling into utter bliss. He moaned contentedly as Sherlock introduced the slightest scrape of teeth against his bottom lip. When Sherlock trailed down his jaw and mouthed heartily at the side of his throat, he tilted his head back and stroked up his muscled back.

“Sherlock,” he whispered, his head dizzy with lust from the hot breath on his neck. Sherlock planted two more hard kisses on his pulse before moving back up. When their lips touched this time, it was much softer - almost delicate.

In an instant, everything had slowed down. They continued to kiss in small nibbles, thinking each would be the last one before they stopped, but then immediately leaning back in for another.  At last, they slowly parted and pulled back. John rested his wet forehead onto Sherlock’s, his eyes still closed, treasuring the moment with everything in him . . . sealing it permanently into his memory.

When at last he cracked his eyes open, he saw that Sherlock’s were still closed, his breath coming in soft pants as though his mind were short-circuiting. He caressed through the damp curls at his nape, allowing him to take his time.

Sherlock finally opened his eyes after another minute, and ever so slowly raised his gaze to meet his.  A moment passed when they were unsure as to how to react to this progression from their earlier encounter in John’s room. But then, Sherlock’s eyes relaxed . . . and he smiled. 

And it was the most radiant, beautiful sight John had ever had the pleasure of laying his eyes on.

With their foreheads pressed together, and their hands gently cupping each other’s cheeks and the napes of their necks, they leaned in for one more long, lingering kiss.

“We should head back,” Sherlock said. “We don’t want to be too sleep-deprived tomorrow or it’ll be obvious we snuck out.”

**********

Riding home with damp skin, dry clothes, and drenched pants was an incredibly horrendous experience - or would have been, if John’s mind hadn’t been so distracted with the night’s events.

Sherlock Holmes, the boy he’d been crushing on for the majority of his time here, the boy who made his stomach overturn with bubbly warmth whenever he was near, the boy he secretly sketched when he thought he wasn’t looking, and who he felt comfortable enough with to tell anything . . .  had kissed him - quite enthusiastically.

John had never really gotten a chance to let their first kiss fully sink in. Everything after that had happened so fast. 

He snuck a glance at Sherlock riding next to him. Sherlock caught his eye and smiled back warmly. 

**********

Back in the manor, they said their goodnights and split in the hallway to retreat to their separate bedrooms. John took a five-minute rinse in the shower to rid himself of all the mud that was still caked onto his skin. When finished, he suddenly felt too tired to even carry his own weight. He flopped onto his bed, his hair still damp from the shower, and curled up into the sheets. He closed his eyes and was asleep within minutes, dreaming of warm lips and intense, dazzling turquoise eyes.

**********

Then next morning, John’s eyelids were teased open unwillingly from the scorching sunlight beaming onto him through the balcony door. He groaned and burrowed deeper into his pillow, wishing he could have stayed asleep for another two hours at least.

Within a minute, the memories of last night swarmed back into his mind, and he blushed and grinned into his pillow, feeling slightly better. Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to get out of bed, get dressed, and see Sherlock. He vowed to spend as much time with him as possible, to treasure every moment with him from now until the end of the summer. Because once he left, he had a strong feeling he wouldn’t ever see nearly as much of Sherlock again as he’d like, if he even saw him at all.

Some of the hungover giddiness of last night was dampened by the realization that their “encounter” raised some inevitable questions. What were they to each other? A couple? A fling? What would happen at the end of summer when John had to return home?

The endless unpleasant possibilities made John’s temples throb, and he decidedly pushed them out of his mind for the time-being. All of that could be handled later. 

He rubbed a hand over his face and turned to look at the clock on his nightstand. It was nearly noon. He momentarily felt guilty that Vicki had probably waited a while for him with his usual prepared breakfast.

Something else on the nightstand caught his eye. A bound book of black leather, closed with a metal snap.  Laying on the cover was a small, square card.

He sat up and picked the book up, opening it and fanning through the crisp, blank, white pages that were practically begging to be filled with new sketches. He then looked down at the card that had been on the cover. 

Inked in slanted, cursive writing that could only belong to one person: _Yours Truly_  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally!! :D
> 
> Side note: the night swim part of this chapter was inspired by an art piece by @anotherwellkeptsecret on tumblr. I don't know how to link to blogs or posts on AO3 otherwise I'd direct you, but go check her out if you get a chance! 
> 
> Also, this fic was loosely inspired by Ed Sheeran's song "Hearts Don't Break Around Here," if you didn't already know. So go give that a listen if you want! :) 
> 
> As always, I appreciate all comments and kudos and hope you enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

John showered and dressed as quickly as he could, and headed downstairs for lunch.

He rounded the corner into the kitchen and found Sherlock hunched over the counter, sipping his tea while flipping languorously through the paper. He was dressed in a thin, button-down as always - soft, pastel blue this time.  John quite liked that color on him. It contrasted well with his dark hair and accented his eyes quite nicely.

Sherlock looked up at him lingering in the archway and stood up straight.

“John, you’re awake. Good mor-”

He interrupted the rest of his greeting by launching himself forward, wrapping his arms around his neck and shoulders, and kissing the ever-living daylights out of him.

Sherlock startled for a moment before regaining his balance and wrapping his arms around him to return the kiss with equal passion. When at last they both had to come up for air, John rested his forehead against his, panting lightly.

“I take it you liked the sketchbook then?” Sherlock asked lowly, just between the two of them even though no one else was present.

“You really didn’t need to do that.”                                                                             

“Of course I did. They targeted you because you stood up for me.”

“Doesn’t make it your fault, you git.” John nudged his nose in affection.

“Well, then I guess I’m just an excellent friend.”

At these words, John pulled back fractionally, his smile gradually fading. The word “friend” had shoved an ice cold feeling into his chest. Before his hurt and confusion got out of hand, he reminded himself that perhaps it had just been an innocent blunder with wording. Sherlock had never had a proper friend before, let alone anything more than a friend. How would he know the proper communication protocol in these situations? It was up to himself to guide them through whatever was going on between them.

His conclusion was confirmed by Sherlock’s questioning eyes darting between his own, oblivious to the fact that he’d said anything remotely wrong, and wondering why John’s demeanor had changed.

“Right, er . . . That reminds me.” He swallowed and pondered how to begin. “Sherlock, we need to talk about-”  

At that moment, Vicki wheeled around the corner, halting in her steps at the sight of the two of them. They still had their arms around each other, and their foreheads were nearly touching. Instantly, they jumped apart as if electrocuted.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her eyes flying back and forth between them. John helplessly looked to Sherlock, who was apathetically avoiding both of their gazes, although the spreading blush on his cheeks betrayed his false indifference.

Vicki cleared her throat and smoothed her palms down her skirt as if wiping something off them. “Good to see you up, John. Apologies for interrupting your, um. . .”

“Oh, no. You weren’t interrupting. We were just talking. I mean . . . it’s fine,” he finished awkwardly.

Vicki smiled warmly at him. “Right. Have you had something to eat?”

John grabbed the nearest food he could find, which happened to be a banana. “Yes,” he said.

“No, no, that’s not nearly enough. It’s almost lunch time. I might as well fix something up for the both of you.”

“Oh, there’s really no need,” John protested, but she was already setting out lettuce, bread, and cheese slices onto the counter. 

“There’s no use arguing with her,” Sherlock said, seating himself at the table. “She once force-fed my dad a full steak after he returned home from a  _ dinner _ meeting.”

“He clearly hadn’t eaten enough!” Vicki said in defense of herself. She served them turkey sandwiches with freshly sliced strawberries as a side. “You won’t be complaining about me when you move out and have to feed yourself. God knows you’ll starve without someone to make sure you’re eating properly.” She swatted Sherlock on the back of his shoulder, watching him grimace as he took a bite out of his sandwich.

“John, keep an eye on him for me while I wash the dishes, will you? Make sure he’s not sneaking scraps into the bin.”

John grinned at Sherlock, who glared back as if daring him to discipline him on his eating habits. When they finished, they set their plates by the sink.

“John?” Vicki called, right as they were about to exit the kitchen.

“Yeah?”

“A quick word, please?” She smiled and cocked her head towards the living room.

His stomach dropped. He was about to get the “parent talk.” There was no way Vicki had let go of what she saw upon entering the kitchen so quickly and easily.

He looked to Sherlock for help, who uselessly hopped up onto a barstool to wait for him.

_ Thanks for nothing, _ he thought as he reluctantly followed Vicki out.

He wiped his sweaty palms onto his jeans as he entered the living room with her. Off to the side, William sat in an armchair, his spectacles positioned low on his nose as he read while pretending to be unaware of their presence.

He looked back to Vicki, and could not read her expression for the life of him. 

“John,” she began. “After you left to your room last night, Sherlock told me the details about what happened during the fight.”

John cocked his head in question. Of all the things he was expecting to hear from her, that was not high on the list. 

“I had no idea this . . . this Jim fellow and his friends had been bothering Sherlock for so long. He never told me, and I . . .”

Her voice faltered here. She took a moment to regather herself, looking as though she’d somehow betrayed Sherlock or had failed as a mother to protect him.  John wished more than anything that he could tell her that wasn’t true, and that all the sheltering in the world couldn’t protect her son from some things.

“Anyway,” she continued, seemingly deciding against saying whatever had just made her eyes water with suppressed emotion. “He told me what that boy said about me, and what you did. I know there was more to it than just a few insults, but I only feel it is right for me to thank you for defending my name, John.”

John opened his mouth to protest. Thanking him was entirely unnecessary; he had acted on instinct. 

“However,” she continued, cutting him off before he began. “I must request that you do not get into any more fights on my behalf or anyone else’s. I won’t have it.”

She fixed him with a look, but behind the sternness in her eyes, John recognized what she was actually feeling – love. For him. He wanted to tell her how much he reciprocated every last drop of it, but felt words could not do justice to express how grateful he was for her. Even after the fight, he had been unable to explain to himself why the insults to Vicki had ignited a fury in him far greater than anything he felt when his sketchbook was ruined. And when it came down to it, Jim calling Vicki those horrible names was what made him throw that first punch, not his sketchbook. 

He realized Vicki was waiting for a response from him, and all he could do was nod tightly. Her stern look melted into a smile, and she pulled him forward into a bone-crushing hug.

“No more fights. You hear me? I don’t care what those boys say. That goes for Sherlock, too. Pass him a word for me, will you?”

He used the last of his breath to croak out a “yes” before he was released. She planted a sticky kiss onto his forehead.

“Good. Now go have fun. And stay away from those boys. They’re no good,” she added, shaking her finger at him.

As John turned to leave, he noticed William smiling evasively down into his book. Doubtless it was from the exchange he had just overheard, not from whatever extensive text he was reading. John got the feeling he wanted to add a comment of his own – most likely complimenting him on his nerve – but was holding his tongue to avoid a scolding from his wife.  

John met Sherlock back in the kitchen a moment later.

“Everything okay?” he asked, sliding off the barstool.

“Yeah.”

“Good.” They walked together to the back porch so they could take Selene and Juliet out for a quick afternoon ride – something they hadn’t done in a while.

“What were you going to say to me?” Sherlock stopped and waited for a response with his hand on the door handle. “Before my mum wanted to speak with you.”

“What? Oh, um. . .”

John sucked in a breath, preparing himself to say what needed to be said. But the words died prematurely in his throat the instant he met Sherlock’s gaze. Sherlock was looking at him expectantly - almost innocently - and he couldn’t bring himself to say anything that might burst that bubble of quiet happiness he saw in his eyes.

He and Sherlock were both navigating something entirely new here, something that was delicate by nature. One misplaced move could shatter whatever was between them forever, especially now in this fetal stage. After all, they had only kissed for the first time last night. There was no point in starting a conversation about the nature of their relationship when Sherlock was probably still feeling the situation out - just like him. 

This whole thing could work itself out, John decided. Why speed up the process when there was no guaranteeing a conversation right now would resolve anything. And once that can of worms was opened, there would be no going back.

He realized Sherlock was still looking at him, waiting for an answer to his question.

“Er . . . nothing.”

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow. “You were going to say something.”

“Just . . . that I like this color on you,” he said cheekily, appreciatively petting the material covering his bicep.

“It is rather flattering, isn’t it?” Sherlock said, looking down at himself proudly.

John grinned adoringly at him as Sherlock slid the door open and allowed him to pass through.

**********

Through the next week, they fell back into their old routine of riding their horses in the mornings and making occasional trips to town. But now, when they walked through the market, John would take Sherlock’s hand in his and offer him a small smile. Now they stole quick kisses between shops and more heated ones deep in the woods when they were alone. John’s new sketchbook was quickly filling with pictures of Sherlock napping, smiling, reading, playing his violin.

Each day that passed where John failed to bring up the talk he’d been meaning to have, it became easier and easier to put it off for longer, allowing them one more day of just being what they were. The last thing he wanted to do was disturb this comfortable, balanced rhythm they’d found themselves in.

Yet each passing day that they didn’t talk was one day closer to John leaving for London. He had been in Sussex for approximately six weeks now.

It’s not that John wasn’t trying to talk to Sherlock about the very real fact that he would not be living with him forever. It was just that every time he tried to bring it up, something or another made it “not the right time,” as he kept telling himself.

He didn’t want to disturb the quiet peace they shared when they ate sandwiches and dangled their legs off the edge of the rocky cliff. It didn’t seem right to bring it up when they had lunch at Angelo’s and didn’t refuse a candle on their table. Morning, afternoon, and evening rides were never the most opportune times either, given that they were on horseback. 

But his opportunities were very quickly running low, with only two and a half weeks left at the manor. And once he was gone from Sussex, he was gone. He hadn’t told Sherlock yet, but he was planning on enlisting instead of going to uni. It was a much more practical route for him to take, financially. Sherlock would attend uni, no doubt. But there was no telling where either of them would end up after that.

His biggest worry was that Sherlock did not reciprocate his desires in the same way he did. They had not known each other for very long, after all. What if Sherlock told him he had no interest in keeping in touch after he left? What if for him, he was just convenient, temporary company?

The thought of leaving Sussex knowing he’d never see Sherlock again drilled a gaping hole in his heart that he knew would never be filled again. He’d ache for him for months, possibly years, until he became a distant memory. And after that, he'd spend the rest of his life wondering what could have been between them under different circumstances. 

**********

One particularly foggy morning found Sherlock and John quietly eating breakfast while Vicki chatted with them from the sink.

“So what will you two be up to today?” she asked.

“I’m taking John out tonight,” Sherlock said, not bothering to look up from the paper.

John on the other hand, whipped his head towards him with a mouth full of grapes.

“Are you?”

Sherlock’s lip twitched up as he hummed in response, refusing to give him any more details.

“Oh, how fun!” Vicki exclaimed. “Somewhere fancy?”

“Do I have to dress nice?” John added.

“I would advise against it,” Sherlock said with a tone of finality. “Just be ready at 6.”

**********

At 5:50 that evening, John looked himself over in the mirror for what seemed like the hundredth time. He tucked and untucked his shirt. Unbuttoned then buttoned the top of it. He carded through his hair, wondering again if he should part it on the opposite side, or gel his bangs back, or . . . something. 

Deciding there was nothing to be done about how plain he looked, he gave himself an assertive nod in the mirror and went down to meet Sherlock in the living room.

The two of them had ventured out together plenty of times before. But something about the way he had said he was “taking him out tonight” and to “be ready at 6” made this time seem undeniably like a date – which probably explained the buzzing nerves and tumbling insides he felt while getting ready.

Sherlock had told him to dress casual, but on instinct, he felt it was more appropriate to change into his nicer, solid red shirt as opposed to the casual, checkered one. He had also exchanged his khaki shorts for trousers and combed through his hair with a wet comb.

Sherlock was already in the living room waiting for him. He wore the same black slacks he always wore, but had changed into a dark blue button down. There was a bit of shine on his hair from the ceiling light, and John wondered if he had put a bit of product in to add extra volume to his curls.

“Dress casual, eh?” John said, looking over his striking figure, outlined sharply by the cut of his shirt.

Sherlock glanced up from the magazine he had been flipping through, and smiled as he looked him up and down.

Yes, John thought. There were definitely “date vibes” in the air tonight.

“This is casual for me. You, on the other hand, have chosen to wear the nicest shirt you’ve packed.”

“Sod off,” John said with a smile as they fell in step beside each other. “So, where are we going?

“To the car.”

“And where will the car be taking us?”

“You’ll see.”

“Last time you said that, you made me jump off a cliff nearly naked in the middle of the night.”

“Yes, and you loved it. You’ll love this, too.”

**********

Fifteen minutes later, they were driving down a long road that seemed to veer off somewhere at the end. John heard music through the window, and noticed colorful lights flashing through the trees. As driver turned around the corner, he pressed his hands and face against the glass.

The music and lights were coming from what looked like some kind of carnival. There were booths, dancers, games, and of course, a Ferris wheel. The place was alive and buzzing, filled with people who all seemed to be either in high school or uni. There didn’t seem to be a single child in sight, which was for the better considering the number of loitering, smoking teenagers he saw. 

The driver stopped at the perimeter of the clearing. John stepped out and admired the clear evening sky – a perfect night for something like this.

Sherlock came around the other side of the car to stand next to him.

“It comes to town twice every summer. Not really my scene, but I thought you’d enjoy it.” 

“So you’ve never gone before?”

“Why would I?”

“Oh, come on,” John said, seeing through his façade in an instant. “Don’t be like that. You’ll have fun, too. I promise.”

“If you say so.”

They ventured towards the heart of the carnival in silence, passing several snack booths and games. As they walked, John noticed Sherlock’s hand brushing against his too many times for it to be accidental. He grinned privately. This past week he had noticed that Sherlock could initiate hot and heavy makeouts in the woods, but when it came to the small things, the quieter intimacies, he shied away.

John slipped his hand into his palm and wove their fingers together with a light squeeze. He smiled reassuringly at Sherlock, who was deliberately keeping his gaze fixed ahead as if nothing had happened. His indifference, however, was betrayed by the small smile playing at his lips and the pink flush in his cheeks. They wandered the carnival for a while, hand in hand, stopping at various booths if something caught their eye. 

“Why is everyone spreading blankets out over there?” John asked over the music, nodding towards a grassy area.

“There’s a firework display at the end of the night. We’ll watch if you want.”

“Sherlock?” a vaguely familiar voice called from their left.

They turned to find a girl in a booth waving enthusiastically at them from across the grounds. John grinned and waved back.

“Isn’t that that girl we met earlier?” Sherlock asked quietly as they walked over.

“Molly,” John reminded him out of the corner of his mouth.

“Hi!” she said to Sherlock, as they approached her booth. He smiled tightly back at her.

Her hair was in the same tight ponytail they’d seen earlier, but instead of a white lab coat, she wore a yellow, flowery blouse and jean shorts.

She turned to greet him as well. “And . . . sorry. Your name . . .?”

“John. Hi,” he said, curious at the fact that his name was far more common and easier to remember than Sherlock’s. “You running this booth?”

“Just helping out. It’s my boyfriend’s booth. Greg!” she called, looking behind her.

At that moment, a boy who’d been hunched over a box of cash turned around to greet them. He was tall, but very fit. He had a handsome, tan face and thick, brown hair that swept effortlessly to the side. He smiled widely at them, but froze a moment later with his mouth still opened for an unspoken greeting.

“I know you guys,” he said slowly.

John exchanged a look with Sherlock, and was relieved to find a similar lack of recognition on his face.

“Yes!” the boy exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “My dad arrested you two!”

At this, Molly’s beaming smile vanished, and she looked at them with something between horror and disapproval.

“My dad, Officer Lestrade. Big dude. Kinda mean. Looks like he might eat you when he’s angry,” Greg prompted.

An image of a burly, balding officer with a thick, brown mustache supplied itself in John’s mind. A tall, fuzzy figure stood in the background of his memory, hanging back with the officers. Greg smiled when he saw recognition dawn on their face.

“Right, uh . . . hi.” John awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck while Sherlock looked down at his feet uncomfortably. He was entirely at a loss for how to act while meeting the son of the man who’d broken up their fight and taken them all in handcuffs.

Luckily, Greg set the tone of the interaction for them. “Hey, man,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder as if they were old chaps. “From what I saw, you’ve got an excellent left hook. That guy’s nose must have been gushing all the way back to the station,” he said with awe.

“Greg!” Molly scolded quietly through her teeth. “That’s not funny!”

John chuckled uncomfortably, thankful for the boy’s relaxed nature, but reluctant to accept praise for getting himself in a fight.

“Your father, Officer Michael F. Lestrade,” Sherlock began. “The same man who was unable to catch the man who robbed the record shop back in April, and refused to accept my help out of sheer pride when I handed the answer right to him.”

John looked at Sherlock with wide eyes, horror struck at how he could openly insult someone’s father to their face. But to his surprise, Greg only scrunched his eyes in mock consideration and then nodded agreeably.

“Sounds like him.”

Sherlock plundered on, ignoring John’s nonverbal signals to shut up. “I’ve found that the police force in Sussex is consistently out of their depths and lacks the skills and deductive powers of reasoning to be an effective branch of law enforcement.”

Greg looked stunned for a moment, but then threw his head back and laughed merrily, as if they’d just shared some hilarious joke.

“I’ll drink to that, mate.”

John caught Molly’s eye and gave her a look of apology on Sherlock’s behalf. She offered him a sympathetic smile and an eye roll at her boyfriend’s behavior.

“Say, why don’t you two have a go here,” Greg asked, gesturing behind him to the little game they’d set up. “Just a pound apiece!”

Several meters behind the booth were a set of shelves stacked above one another, each one receding further back that the one below it. Lined up on the shelves were palm-sized cardboard cutouts, each one shaped like a person bent in unnatural position. Some had X’s for eyes and their tongues sticking out comically. Most in the front were spattered with what looked like green paint or slime. A gun was laid on the booth’s tabletop - obviously, not a real one.  Several prizes varying in size and quality hung on the walls of the booth.

“Pretty simple,” Greg said, handing Sherlock the gun. “You get ten shots to shoot down as many of these little dudes as you can. If you hit those harder ones in the back, you get a better prize.”

Sherlock hoisted the gun up and took aim. Immediately, John could tell it would be a failed attempt. He was holding it all wrong, carelessly handling it, his grip was off, and people only aimed like that in the movies.

He pulled the trigger and a little, green pellet flew forward, hitting the wall behind the cutouts.

“Ooh. Try again,” Greg said encouragingly.

The second shot hit the foot of a cutout in the closest row, and green paint exploded onto the cardboard.

“Nice!”

Sherlock grew more and more frustrated with each shot, and his aim suffered proportionally. Eight bullets later, only three cutouts were dripping with fresh, green paint, while the wall behind seemed to have been redecorated.

Sherlock scowled and slammed the gun down onto the booth. “Stupid game,” he muttered.

Greg chuckled. “Well, that’s three out of ten. Not the worst I’ve seen.” He handed Sherlock a glow-stick as his prize. John briefly wondered if he’d have to stop Sherlock from smacking it out of his hand. Instead, he watched in amazement as Greg snapped it around his wrist for him, while Sherlock glowered at him looking ready to bite.

“Give it here,” John said, taking the gun before Sherlock could hit Greg with it. He handed another pound to Molly while Greg repositioned the cutouts. 

He closed one eye to perfect his aim, and shot down four cutouts in the middle row successively. Smirking a bit to himself at Greg and Molly’s amazed stares, and intentionally not looking at Sherlock, he readjusted his aim.  Next, he effortlessly shot four in the farthest row, directly in the center.

“Blimey!” Greg yelled while Molly clapped. Using his last two bullets, he finished off the last figures standing in the two farthest rows before setting the gun down with pride.

“That was incredible, John!” Greg said. “I’ve never seen anyone shoot like that before. I guess now you get your pick of any of the prizes.”

John finally looked at Sherlock, who seemed to have malfunctioned again. His widened eyes seemed glued to the knocked down cardboard cutouts, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly. He glanced at John, but the second they made eye contact, he looked away almost guiltily and turned scarlet.

John grinned and looked around at the array of prizes. In the top corner, he spotted a plum purple teddy bear in a cream colored jumper.

“I’ll have that one,” he said, sneaking a glance at Sherlock. Greg gave it to him, and he immediately shoved it into Sherlock’s’ hands.  “There,” he said.

Sherlock looked down at the bear in his hands and back up at him, lost for words.

“I don’t . . . I don’t need a . . . what am I going to do with this?”

“Now you can cuddle with it and see how cozy jumpers are,” he said.  _ And remember me by when you look at it. _

“I don’t . . .  _ cuddle _ .” He practically spit the word out, but the effect was lost due to his flustered, batting eyelashes.

“That’s so sweet!” Molly squealed, latching onto Greg’s arm.

“Alright, well thanks guys,” John said, looping his arm through Sherlock’s to start pulling him away.

“Will you guys be watching the fireworks?” Molly asked hopefully.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, glancing at Sherlock, who was still looking at the teddy as if he’d never seen or touched one before.

“We should try to find each other on the lawn!” she said excitedly.

“Molly, please. Let’s let them spend their time alone,” Greg muttered as quietly as he could.

“Oh, right,” Molly said, looking between them and down at the bear.

John smiled at them and pulled Sherlock away, but almost immediately, he unlinked their arms and darted to another booth.

“I need to win something for you now,” he said, shoving a pound at the man behind it.

John laughed. “You really don’t need to.”

But Sherlock was already aiming his dart at the spinning wheel, no doubt calculating the exact timing and speed he would need to land the “jackpot.”

The dart ended up hitting a 2. When the booth runner fanned out a spread of lollipops for him to choose from, he yelled, “I don’t want them!” and stormed away.

**********

“I don’t see the point of these stupid games,” Sherlock grumbled later, after he’d lost at his fourth one. “There’s no skill or intelligence required for any of them. It’s just dumb luck,” he added, glaring at the Whack-a-mole game he’d just failed at. He grudgingly took another bite of the cotton candy John had bought to cheer him up.

 

John gave up trying to rationalize with Sherlock after three more failed attempts at winning a decent prize. Instead, he lingered by a tree while Sherlock verbally abused a fortune teller for making a mockery of the art of deduction. He rubbed his temples in embarrassment when he began harassing her for a prize.

“Sir, you can’t win anything from a psychic.”

“Why not? I paid you, didn’t I? Or is the gift of your ever-seeing knowledge supposed to have been worth my money?”

“Sir-”

“I bet you can’t even tell me what I had for breakfast this morning.”

“I’m not not sure you understand-”

“Because I can tell you that you woke up late for yoga and grabbed a protein bar and bottle of juice on your way out the door.”

“How do you-”

“Perhaps I should be running your booth! I’d even get to keep all the money since I wouldn’t need to reimburse anyone for the prizes you don’t give out!”

Back and forth they went, until the poor woman finally screamed at him to shut up and stomped furiously to a neighboring booth.

A minute later, Sherlock merrily strolled up to where John stood with his head in his palms. When he looked up, a plastic skull was thrust into his chest by a beaming Sherlock, batting his eyes angelically.

“And what is this?” John asked.

“It glows in the dark!” Sherlock said, practically bounding on his feet.

“I hope you’re satisfied, you prat, because I can no longer be associated with you.”

**********

Half an hour later, John and Sherlock found themselves hidden among a small cluster of trees at the edge of the carnival, lips locked and hands wandering. The sky had darkened considerably by now; the only light came from the flashing carnival rides.

John moaned contentedly into Sherlock’s mouth as he slipped his hand under the back of his shirt. Sherlock switched the direction his head was tilting and continued engulfing his lips with his own. With the hand that wasn’t groping as much of Sherlock as he could get to under his shirt, John fisted his curls and returned his efforts with equal, if not stronger, fervor.

Outside the dark concealment provided to them by the conveniently placed trees, the lively music and voices from the carnival seemed to be coming from a separate world. It was as if they had escaped to another dimension, consumed only by the sounds of their soft panting and breathy moans, the quiet squelching sounds produced by their mutual devouring of each other’s mouths. 

Sherlock groaned as he rubbed down John’s chest and squeezed his waist. He skimmed his hand down his thigh and hoisted his leg up around his own hip. John growled and pushed him back against a tree. He undid his top two buttons and buried his face into the exposed hollow of his throat, planting hungry kisses all over the area. His hands rose back up under his shirt, rubbing his chest and stomach as if trying to feel it all at once. Sherlock hissed and threw his head back when he began sucking at the base, where his shoulder met his neck. His hand fisted into the back of his shirt, his fingernails biting painfully into John’s skin.

When John finally came up for air after sucking his throat long enough to leave a decent mark, Sherlock took the opportunity to reverse their positions. Pinning him with his whole body, he cupped his face in his massive hands and kissed and licked into his mouth with all his might. John hooked his leg back around him, pulling his hips in closer and tangling his fingers into his knotted curls again.

Sherlock released the tight suction of their lips and began nipping underneath his jaw. John sighed and lifted his chin, his eyes drooping closed in pleasure. The explosion of sensations drowned out the distant “popping” sounds coming from the carnival, and he was left only with the feeling of hot breath and lips on his neck, and the shadows of the colorful, flickering lights he could see from behind his closed eyes. Sherlock subtly rocked into him as he began sucking down the side of his neck. John rolled his head back further, lost in the sensations.

His eyes cracked open when a particularly bright light momentarily flashed out the darkness behind his closed eyelids. The black night sky greeted his sight, decorated with falling specks of red and gold glitter.

At once, the sounds surrounding them came rushing back into his ears, as if he were resurfacing from underwater.  Another “pop,” and green specks exploded onto the blackness followed by an “oooh” from a distant crowd.

“Sherlock,” he said breathlessly, lightly hitting his shoulder to get his attention.

Sherlock hummed into his skin with a mixture of pure contentment and annoyance, not wanting to be disturbed.

“Sherlock, the fireworks! It’s started!”

“Hm?”

John practically dragged his face away from his neck by a handful of his hair. Sherlock resurfaced looking dazed and thoroughly disheveled, his hair sticking up in all directions.

“Look,” John said, turning him by the shoulders and stepping forward so they could watch the show side by side. Purple and red sparks exploded in the sky, followed by a loud, gold sizzle.

An extravagant display of five or six large ones fired all at once, filling the sky with a multitude of colors and wispy smoke.

“Wow,” John breathed. He turned to share his excitement with Sherlock, but found him already watching him with glazed-over eyes. John gazed back up at him with a faint smile, watching the next set of yellow and blue sparks flickering in his irises.

Sherlock stepped behind him and wrapped his arms around his shoulders and chest from behind, lowering them into the grass. John sat between his knees and leaned back, absent-mindedly stroking the forearms holding him close. They watched the remainder of the show nestled comfortably together on the grass, feeling as though nothing in the world could disturb their private bubble of paradise and perfection.

**********

“Try to be quiet. My parents are probably asleep,” Sherlock murmured as they tiptoed past the master bedroom and climbed the stairs to their floor. It was 11 o’clock, and they’d decided to call it a night once the fireworks had finished.

They made their way down the hallway, where at last they stood between the thresholds of their separate bedrooms. For a moment, they stared at their feet, at the walls, anything to put off saying goodnight for a few more moments, thus calling an end to this perfect night.

“Did you have a nice time?” Sherlock asked.

“I did. Thank you,” John said, his hand lingering on his door handle. Sherlock pushed his door open and hesitantly stepped in.

John twisted his own knob and entered into his room.

“Well, erm . . .”

“Um . . .Goodnight, John,” he said unsurely, prolonging closing his door all the way.

“Goodnight.” John made to close his door behind him. Just as it was about to shut all the way, he turned around and found Sherlock across the hall, still watching him through a cracked door.

For a moment, they maintained their locked gazes and held breath, both waiting for the other to initiate the next move. Finally, Sherlock gave a resigned breath and opened his door all the way.

“Oh, just come in here already,” he said, stepping aside.

John’s lips split into a gleeful smile as he slipped into Sherlock’s bedroom, closing the door behind them with a final click.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The carnival scene was inspired by Beyonce's XO music video :) Also now that we're about half way done, I want to take a moment and thank everyone who's kept up with this story, and also new readers for giving it a chance! It means to world to me <33


	7. Chapter 7

Beams of pale sunlight filtered in through the window, teasing John’s eyelids open. Unwilling to get up just yet, he burrowed his face into his pillow for a few more moments, inhaling the combined scents of his own musk and a familiar, poncy shampoo. He then fully opened his eyes, s miling contentedly to himself as he remembered where he was.

He was laying on his stomach with his arm thrown carelessly over the naked torso lying next to him.  Sherlock’s chest rose and fell evenly under the weight of his arm. Small puffs of morning breath fell from his lips in even intervals. John smiled at the innocent, sleeping face on the pillow beside him, features completely relaxed and lost to the world, taking at least five years off his age. A small tuft of curly hair had fallen endearingly onto his forehead, while the rest remained tousled up and tangled from the previous night’s events.

John’s eyes were drawn to the three red hickeys decorating his chest and throat, bright and vibrant against the pale, delicate skin. He grinned in pride remembering how he’d put them there as Sherlock had laid panting underneath him, his hand pulling both of them off under the sheets while he sucked each mark possessively into his skin.

He lazily traced a finger over them. The matching marks on his own hips and thighs tingled in sympathy, reminding him of Sherlock slithering down his body, marking it as his own before taking him in the wet heat of his mouth . . . how he’d blindly latched onto a handful of curly hair and thrown his head back, drowning in the intensity of the sensations, letting it fill him to the brim . . .

His body warmed up at the memory. He grinned in satisfaction and unadulterated joy.

“Hey, you,” came a groggy voice. He looked up to see Sherlock grinning lazily down at him as he rubbed his eyes.

“Hey,” John said, propping his chin up onto his shoulder.

Sherlock stretched and yawned widely, somewhat reminding him of a cat. “God, I’m starving,” he drawled.

“What, did I work you too hard?”

Sherlock chuckled and looped his arm around his back, pulling him in to plant a sloppy kiss on his lips. John untangled their legs under the covers and climbed on top of him to fix the awkward angle. He straddled his hips and leaned down again, planting his forearms on either side of Sherlock’s head.

They exchanged slow, lazy kisses for a while, not paying the slightest bit attention to their combined morning breath.

“Sod the food. What do you say we just stay here all day,” Sherlock murmured huskily, trailing a hand up his bare back.

John hummed approvingly into his mouth. “I can think of a few ways to keep busy.” He trailed his lips across Sherlock’s jaw and nibbled softly right under his ear, a spot he’d learned last night that made him weak at the knees. Sherlock’s eyes rolled into the back of his head in pleasure as he succumbed to his mouth. Down below, their hips fell into a slow, harmonized roll.

John felt a surge of confidence at his pleasured sounds and decided to ride it before it fizzled out.

“Sherlock, I was thinking,” he murmured, peppering kisses at the corner of his jaw. 

“Yes?” he replied breathlessly.

“I’ve been here for a month and a half now.”

“Mm hmm?” 

Sherlock hardly seemed to be paying attention, but John found it much easier to talk with his head buried under his chin. He might as well get his concerns off his chest because he knew he would back out later if he didn’t. 

“I’m going to be going home in about two weeks.”

Sherlock made a noise somewhere between a contended hum and a sigh of disappointment. 

Just as John began to move his efforts lower onto his neck, a loud pounding erupted at the door. He jerked his head up, knocking painfully into Sherlock’s chin.

They both hissed in pain. John placed his hand on his face in apology, ignoring his own throbbing head.

“Master Sherlock?” came a voice from the hallway.

“What is it, Wallace?” Sherlock called in great annoyance, rubbing his chin and jaw.

“There is a young man at the door for you.”

They looked at each other in question.

“Who is it?” John asked, before slapping his hand over his mouth.

There was a great pause at the door, where they could practically hear Wallace putting the pieces together.

John closed his eyes and hung his head, ashamed of his stupidity. Sherlock, however, only seemed amused.

“He . . . did not give his name, sir.”

“Alright, just tell him we’ll be down in a few minutes,” Sherlock said suppressing a laugh.

Another long, agonizing pause. “Yes, sir.”

When the footsteps faded away, John lifted his head and met Sherlock’s eye.

“Shut it,” he grumbled.

**********

They stumbled down the stairs together ten minutes later after freshening up as quickly as they could. They had ended up pulling on the discarded clothes they had thrown on Sherlock’s floor last night, hoping no one would notice the faint smells of smoke and grass. John swore he could feel Wallace’s hawkish eyes trailing him suspiciously as they passed the living room, where he stood on a stepstool dusting the window sills. 

At last they reached the grand entrance. Sherlock pulled the door open to find a tall, handsome boy, slouching with his hands in his pockets and smiling sheepishly at them from under his lashes.

“Greg?” John asked, widening the door so that they could both see him clearly.

“Hi.” Greg was looking more and more like he’d regretted coming.

“What on earth are you doing here?” Sherlock asked.

Greg looked back and forth between them, visibly summoning his courage. “Look, um. I know it’s not my place to ask. I only met you guys last night, but I’m desperate. I understand if you say no, really. I just thought I’d see . . .”

“Spit it out,” Sherlock said impatiently.

“Well, you see. Molly told me what you did for her. Catching that guy who snatched her portfolio. How you instantly knew where he was going and chased him down. Said you were a natural criminal catcher.”

“And?”

Greg looked down and shuffled his feet for a moment. “My dad sort of gave me a part time job working for the police this summer. Well, unpaid job. Just to see how I do. I mostly stay back at the station doing paperwork, but sometimes he lets me take small cases. I don’t know why. . . I’m hopeless.”

“I thought you agreed with me that the police force here is a joke.”

Greg shrugged apathetically. “It’s a stable career to pursue, and I’ve already got the connections I need. Plus . . . my dad wants me to do it. I’m nearly 20, and once I’m finished with uni, he wants to hook me up with an entry level job there.”

“I see. And your reason for visiting?”

Greg took a deep breath. “I need help. With a case, I mean. The one they gave me today.”

“What’s the case?”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a group of teenagers, supposedly, causing mischief around town. Just petty crimes like vandalism, minor destruction of property, things like that.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“We’ve got a lead, but I don’t know how to make anything of it.” Sherlock squinted suspiciously at him, as if trying to figure out if he had an ulterior motive for asking him. “Please, Sherlock. My dad needs to think I’m capable of doing this on my own, or I’ll lose the job.”

“Unpaid job,” he reminded him. He looked him over once more. “Alright, we’ll come.”

**********

During the taxi ride to the police station, Greg briefed them on everything he knew.  So far the crimes had been mostly harmless but followed a vague enough pattern for them to work out when to expect the next one.

Last night, some officers had caught a young girl in a hotel parking lot taking apart the engine of a charter bus. The bus had been for a group of children on an overnight school trip here in Sussex. Damaging the bus would prevent them from going home like they were supposed to this morning, worry their parents, and stress the children out unnecessarily.

It was the first of the crimes that would have had a direct effect on people’s lives. It also seemed pointlessly cruel, but perhaps the perpetrators simply found joy in causing unnecessary chaos. The girl they caught was arrested and kept in a cell overnight. They were headed over to question her and see if they could find out who else was involved.

The cab pulled up and the three of them climbed out. Greg led them up to the station and into a small room. Sitting in a chair by a table was a young girl, nervously wringing her long, black hair, and seemingly sweating through her clothes.

“Tina?” Greg asked. The girl nodded. “Alright. We’re just going to ask you some questions. The best thing you can do for yourself is answer fully and honestly, okay?. How old are you?”

“Th-thirteen,” she said, trembling.

“Jesus,” John breathed. When Greg had said “a group of teenagers,” he’d imagined dangerous looking thugs closer to their age.

“Alright. And were you acting alone last night?”

“Yes. I mean no! It wasn’t me! I mean, it was me, obviously. But I didn’t want to! Someone made me.”

“Someone forced you to to destroy the charter bus’s engine?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, knowing how pathetic it sounded.

“She’s telling the truth,” Sherlock interjected. Tina beamed at him gratefully.

Greg turned back to her. “Alright, then. Who was it?”

Tina resumed twisting and twirling her hair, almost trying to cover her face with it. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Sherlock breathed in exasperation, pushing past Greg.

“You really are rubbish at this. Obviously she believes telling us will put herself or someone else in some kind of danger.” He braced his hand on the table in front of her and leaned close. “Listen, girl. If the best these people can do is spray paint a few buildings, what kind of harm do you really think they can do to you? Your identity will remain confidential, and the police will immediately bring in any suspects you give us, so stop wasting our time!”

“Sherlock!” John yelled, shocked at his treatment of the poor girl shrinking in the chair. She seemed close to tears now.

“I – I don’t know who it was! We only spoke on the phone!”

“What could you deduce about him from his voice?” he asked forcefully. “Age? Gender? Height?”

“Um. . . it was a boy. Older I think.”

“What else?  _ Think! _ ”

“I don’t know!”

“How much is older? Two years? My age? Twenties?”

“How was I supposed to tell?” she bawled.

Sherlock leaned back and rubbed his hands down his face in frustration. “How did he get your contact information? Am I right in assuming you’re the type to irresponsibly hand out your number to any random stranger who is interested in having it?”

John looked helplessly to Greg, who seemed uncomfortable, but still willing to sit back and let him do his job.

“No, I don’t do that,” Tina babbled on. “I just got a call from an unknown number.”

“What did he say to you?”

“He told me I had to do what he said or else he’d tell my mom about . . . um, something I shouldn’t have been doing. And he told me where he had hidden the supplies I needed, and to take them to the hotel and find the bus he’d marked for me.”

Sherlock stared hard at her. “You were willing to temporarily strand an entire group of children in a city away from their home just so your mum wouldn’t find out about your secret boyfriend?” he asked scornfully. 

Tina gaped at him, lost for words, but Sherlock had already moved on.

“Tell me what you can remember about him. Anything at all.”

“He sounded kind of . . . Irish?”

“Finally! So you’re not entirely useless.”

“Sherlock, that’s enough,” John said, stepping in between him and the girl, who now had tears openly streaming down her face. “Let Greg do it.”

“Greg won’t get anything useful out of her.”

“You’re hardly doing any better. Quit going so hard on her.”

“Directness is the most straightforward and effective method of questioning. But I wouldn’t expect you to know that.”

“Right, because I’m just a bumbling idiot running along after you.”

Sherlock didn’t respond, but his hard set of his jaw and stone cold eyes told John exactly what his response would have been. For a moment they glared at each other, quietly seething and stubbornly holding their ground.

Greg awkwardly cleared his throat when the silence had stretched on a bit too long for his comfort.

“Is that all you can tell us?” Greg asked Tina softly.

“Yes,” she replied almost inaudibly.

“Alright,” he said. “Let me walk you out and show you where you can wait for your mum.”

When the door had closed behind them, John and Sherlock still had not broken eye contact.

“You didn’t need to make her cry,” John said lowly.

“Her feelings are hardly the most important thing in the world right now. These people are obviously slowly increasing the extremities and harm in their crimes. We need to stop them early.”

John glared again, more disappointed than angry this time, and shook his head. He turned on the spot and walked out the door, past Greg and Tina in the front entrance, and outside the building.  He leaned back against the brick and braced his hands on his knees, taking in a few deep breaths of fresh air.  A minute later, Sherlock came bursting out through the door and walked up to him.

“John, listen,” he explained, sounding frustrated, as though he were dealing with a stubborn child. “Whatever she felt during the questioning is all temporary. No lasting damage was done. Catching the perpetrators is what matters, and if she had to be pushed a bit in order to assist-”

“For God’s sake, Sherlock!” John bellowed, making a few heads on the sidewalk turn. “The end goal isn’t all that matters! The way you go about getting there is important too. You don’t have to be an ass to everyone you ever talk to and treat them just as a means to an end!”

He pushed off the wall and paced a few steps back and forth, letting off some steam. Sherlock stood stone-faced, watching him with pursed lips.

He ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. “It was the same thing last night with that fortune teller at the booth. God, don’t you even care about how you make people feel?”

“Will caring help prevent what happened to her from happening to anyone else?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll continue not to make that mistake. Does that bother you?”

“You know what? It does, yeah.”

Sherlock looked carefully at him for a moment, before his face neutralized. Somehow, him being entirely calm all of a sudden was far worse than him still being angry.

“What I’m doing here is not hero-work. Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist. And if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them.”

John looked him up and down, shaking his head to himself. “No, I suppose you’re not.”

He saw something flicker in Sherlock’s eye, but didn’t care to identify what it was before he pushed past him and stuck his hand out into the street. A cab pulled up almost immediately.

“And where exactly are you going?”

“I don’t want to be here, and you clearly don’t need my help.”

Without looking back, he climbed into the cab and closed the door. He pointedly continued to look forward, even as the cab began to roll forward. Out of the corder of his eye, he saw Sherlock roll his eyes with a huff and head back into police station, as if their row had been nothing more than a mere nuisance.

**********

John entered the manor and prayed that no one would be home to see him in such a stormy mood. His hopes were crushed when he turned the corner and stumbled upon Vicki and William in the living room.

“You guys are home early!” Vicki said when she noticed him. Her cheery voice deflated slightly as she looked around him, realizing he was alone.

“Where’s Sherlock?”

“He um . . . needed to stay back and sort some things out.” He kept edging to the stairs, hoping to slip out of this conversation as soon as an opening allowed it.

Luckily, Vicki seemed to read his body language, and swallowed the next question that had been on her mind.

“I see. Well, let me know if you want me to fix something up for you, dear.”

“I will, thanks.”

He rushed out of the living room, climbed two flights of stairs, and made it to his room. This new revelation of Sherlock’s character shouldn’t have disappointed and infuriated him as much as it did. After all, he’d seen this side of him the first time they met, had he not? It was part of what had made it feel so special when he was at last privileged enough to see his kinder side. But that didn’t change the fact that what he’d seen at the police station troubled him to the core.

Sherlock’s treatment of the girl went beyond rude. It was downright cruel and unacceptable. John had looked into his eyes as he’d forced information out of her – he hadn’t felt a thing. Not a single bit of remorse or sympathy as he’d verbally ripped her to shreds. John had tried his hardest to search his eyes and find the boy who had guided his hand to pet Selene, who had held his hand as he jumped off the cliff, who had kissed him underneath the fireworks just last night.

But he had not seen a single trace of him in those cold eyes and snarling, predatory teeth.

It begged the question; if Sherlock didn’t feel anything for the people he treated so horribly, how could he feel anything special for him? They had only known each other for about a month, after all. How could he think he was some special exception to this pattern Sherlock seemed to exhibit? Maybe he was just a means to an end as well, like Tina and the fortune teller. John even remembered him saying earlier in the summer that he took Selene out to the fields when his brain was overwhelmed and he needed a break. As much as a bond as they seemed to have, she was a time-filler to him, and it seemed possible that he was as well - Here to keep him entertained for the summer, and after that, he’d go back to busying himself with experiments and whatever else he did.

Maybe what Vicki hadn’t told him was that Sherlock not having friends was a choice. Maybe he had never made an effort to connect with anyone because he didn’t want to. And the only reason he had accepted him into his life was because they were living across the hall from each other. It’d be easier to get along with someone living that close to you instead of actively hating them, right?

Regardless if his assessment of Sherlock's motivations were correct or if he’d just overthought everything and drawn horribly inaccurate conclusions, John knew one thing. There was no way he was going to tell Sherlock how he felt now, regarding their relationship at the end of the summer. He may not be in control of his feelings for him, but Sherlock was very much in a position to break his heart. At the very least, he had the control to not hand him the weapon to do it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the fluff in the last few chapters! Time to buckle in


	8. Chapter 8

John had spent most of his day wandering aimlessly, choosing various places to mope and stew in his frustration. He worked his way through the manor, from his bedroom to the living room to the library to the porch, quickly growing bored of one location and moving to the next. For the first few hours of this mindless routine, Vicki had popped her head around the corners, gently asking if he needed anything, but eventually left him to his devices after the fourth polite decline.

After growing restless of sitting stationary in various places, he decided that a walk around the grounds could help clear his mind. The fresh air ended up doing wonders for his mood. The storm clouds in his head were blown away and replaced, not with sunshine necessarily, but with a neutral grey overcast. He leisurely paced up and down the stone path a few times, circling the fountain in the middle of the freshly cropped lawn. Every now and then, he felt an instinctual need to glance back at the woods behind him, as though a magnet were pulling him towards the stables. Somehow he thought it would've been a betrayal to ride without Sherlock. But it didn’t take long for him to give in and slip into the bushy cover of the trees. He felt he could do with the company.

**********

An hour later, John found himself sitting cross-legged by the pond which he and Sherlock had once spontaneously jumped into from the cliff towering above him. Somewhere behind him, Juliet sat happily in the grass with her reins loosely tied to a nearby tree.

John continued to mindlessly toss pebbles into the water, watching the ripples expand and fade away. He never learned to skip rocks in his youth. As a kid, he’d always gotten much more satisfaction from watching a heavy rock splash into the water rather than quietly skid across it.

It was late afternoon, and to his knowledge, Sherlock had still not returned home. With a twinge of annoyance, he figured he was so consumed by working the case with Greg that he had probably forgotten all about their little row by now. Though he had to admit, he was grateful for the alone time he’d had to think over what happened, and reevaluate some of the conclusions he’d drawn in his anger.

He still very strongly disagreed with Sherlock’s method of questioning, however effective it may have been. But Sherlock’s occasional mistreatment of others didn’t necessarily mean he couldn’t feel compassion or sympathy - both for those he cared about and for strangers. He simply saw things differently than him in the sense that he valued the ending destination more than the means of getting there. If some people had to be hurt along the way, so be it, according to him. Even if John disagreed, he had to accept that they wouldn’t see eye-to-eye on everything. Now that his anger had simmered down, perhaps he and Sherlock could talk it over once he returned. As long Sherlock didn’t hurt anyone, verbally or physically, he didn’t see why they couldn’t move past it. They had several things they needed to discuss anyway. Might as well get everything out in the open at once.

John tossed another pebble into the water, watching the expanding ringlets interlink with another nearby set. It was then that he heard a quiet rustling from behind him. He assumed it was Juliet until he heard the soft patter of approaching footsteps.

He felt the tall presence approaching before feeling it lower to the ground next to him. John acknowledged his new company by sighing and setting down the small pile of rocks he had gathered into his lap.

“I do care, you know,” came Sherlock’s voice, small and quiet. John looked over to him. He was sitting stiffly with his knees curled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, looking lost and utterly helpless. His head was bent down to avoid his gaze as he fiddled with the hem of his slacks.

“I know,” John said. “I’m sorry for leaving.”

“I should have been kinder.”

“Look, I . . . I get it. I disagree, but I get it. This whole detective thing is your forte and it wasn’t my place to try to intervene when you were just trying to help.” Suddenly, he felt too drained to discuss the matter any further. The emotional toll of the rapidly changing moods he’d felt all day combined with Sherlock’s presence was too much for him. “Let’s just forget it, okay?”

Sherlock pursed his lips for a moment, as if this statement had stopped him from saying something he’d wanted to add. “Okay,” he finally added, sounding mildly reluctant.

John nodded and returned to his small pile of rocks, tossing them half-heartedly into the water one by one.

“It was Jim,” Sherlock said, after some silence. “Jim Moriarty was the mastermind behind the crimes.”

“Makes sense.”

“I didn’t have proof, but I told Greg of my conclusions. He passed on the message, so the police now have a lead they can work from. His father is quite proud of him.”

John snorted, imagining Greg’s combined relief at having something to report to his dad and artificial pride in his so-called accomplishment.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Sherlock’s posture begin to relax somewhat. He had stopped fiddling with his clothes and instead leaned back onto his palms and stretched his legs out towards the water. John smiled to himself, unsure why the sight helped so much to thaw the remaining frost that had built up inside him throughout the day.

“You want to head back to the manor?” he suggested.

Sherlock looked down into his lap. “Actually, my mum is quite cross with me for letting you leave on your own. Perhaps we can ride around for a bit? Enjoy the fresh air?”

John smiled, although he felt sorry that Sherlock had gotten in trouble for his decision. “That sounds nice.”

**********

They untied Selene and Juliet’s reins from their branches. Sherlock mounted Selene and scratched her affectionately behind the ears and down her snout. John felt a twinge of guilt in the pit of stomach. How could he possibly have thought so little of Sherlock only a few hours ago, truly thinking he didn’t care for the most important people (and creatures) in his life.

He mounted Juliet, and together their horses cantered out into the golden field where John had seen him riding for the first time. Once out in the open, they slowed to a walk so it would be easier to chat, if they wished.  He could feel it in the tense air between them. There was so still much to unpack, so much to address, that he didn’t even know where to begin. He decided to start easy, hoping the important topics would come up naturally.

“How did you know I’d be by the pond?”

“I didn’t.”

John was taken aback with another slight pinch of guilt. Images of Sherlock searching for him high and low throughout the grounds and manor were conjured up in his mind. He lowered his eyes shamefully.

“It must have been awkward to see Greg’s dad again after the whole fiasco at the market,” he said, redirecting the conversation.

“No. I left soon after I’d figured it out. Greg phoned me afterwards.”

“You gave him your phone number?”

“He asked for it,” Sherlock said somewhat smugly. “In case he needs my help again.”

“So this will become a regular thing? You doing the police's job for them and letting them take credit?”

Sherlock shrugged. “It’s something to keep me busy.”

John saw an opening, and decided to take a leap of faith and venture into murkier waters. “Won’t uni keep you busy?” he asked, anticipation building in his chest. “If you’re going, that is.”

Sherlock glanced at him curiously from the corner of his eye. “I will be attending uni, yes. I wish to pursue a degree in chemistry at Oxford.”

“Your mum used to teach there right?”

Sherlock seemed agitated at him pointing this out. “Yes, but I made a point of telling her not to pull any strings for me.”

John grinned. “Okay, okay. I wasn’t suggesting anything.”

“I sure hope not.”

“You could get into any university you wanted, with that brain of yours,” he added, more to himself. He saw Sherlock’s eyelashes flutter a bit before he cleared his throat.

“And what about you then? Where will you attend?”

“Can’t afford uni. If I could, I’d study medicine. It was sort of a dream of mine as a kid.”

Sherlock’s expression scrunched curiously, as if something he said was not computing.

“My options are kind of limited without uni. So I’ve decided to enlist for a few years instead,” he added, in attempt to clarify whatever had confused him. He continued, ignoring the stormy expression slowly darkening Sherlock’s face. “I qualified for a program that will help pay for my education, and if I stick with it long enough, I can get certified in army medicine and-”

Sherlock rounded in front of him and pulled his horse to a halt so abruptly that Selene whinnied in protest. John quickly yanked Juliet’s reins to stop them from colliding together.

“I’m sorry,” he said sharply. “Could you clarify exactly what you mean by that?”

John’s eyes darted to the side, unsure as to how he had been unclear. “I’m going to enlist . . .” he said slowly, as if explaining to a child. “In the army . . . in Afghanistan . . .”

Sherlock’s eyebrows knitted together. “Because you can’t afford to pursue a medical degree without it?”

“I mean, that's not the _only_  reason I'm enlisting. But yes. Mostly.”

Sherlock looked at him as if he were being intentionally daft. “John, need I remind you where you are right now? And where you’ve been all summer? You know that we have money. Why would you make such a rash choice when my family could easily provide everything you need to pursue medicine?”

John stared at him in astonishment. “You seriously expect me to ask your parents to pay for my education when I’ve only known them a month?”

“They’ve known your family for much longer than that.”

“Sherlock, you know I could never ask that of them. I don't need your charity, alright? It’s insulting, to be quite honest.”

“I wasn’t suggesting-”

“And it’s not a rash decision either. This has been my plan for years.”

“John, really. You’re being ridiculous. I must insist that you stay in England for school.”

“This is my choice, Sherlock,” he said, growing increasingly annoyed. “I’ve done my research and I’ve thought very carefully about it. This is what I want.”

Sherlock sputtered for a moment, looking him up and down on his horse as if deciphering him. “You can’t,” he decided, shaking his head. “You simply can’t.”

Perhaps it was just his wishful thinking, but John thought he detected a hint of desperation in his voice, something much more vulnerable than objective reasoning. He needed to know why his future mattered so much to Sherlock. That is, if it mattered at all, or if he was just trying to help him be practical.

“Why do you even care?” he blurted, far more aggressively than he’d intended. 

“I won’t let you fly off and get yourself blown up just because you’re too prideful to accept financial help!”

“This _is_  my financial help! I worked hard and got accepted into a good program to help with the money. All on my own," he emphasized. "And hang on. You won’t  _ ‘let me?’ _ ”

"You could _die,_ John. Do you understand that?"

"Of course I understand that!"

“You can’t just carelessly risk your life to avoid paying for school when there’s a perfectly logical solution right in front of you.”

“I ‘can’t’ huh?”

Inside him, the towers of hope that had built up in him for weeks were crumbling down. Of all the times he’d drafted this conversation over and over again in his head, he’d never imagined it would go like this.

When he’d asked Sherlock why he cared, his intention had been to get to the bottom of their relationship. To answer the question that had been floating in and out of the forefront of his mind for weeks: What was he to Sherlock? But Sherlock had completely derailed the conversation, and now they were drawing boundaries with one another instead of erasing them.

He had to get them back on track before something irreversible slipped out of one of their mouths. But first, he decided to sacrifice that goal for a moment and go with this digression. As much as he liked him, and as much as he wanted to continue their lives together, Sherlock needed to know his place when it came to his major life decisions.

“I don’t appreciate you telling me how to dictate my life after only knowing me a month.”

“Six weeks and two days. And this has nothing to do with you being able to make your own choices.”

“It absolutely does. What else could you be so worked up about?” John knew what he wished for the answer to be. He wished Sherlock was thinking it, too. He wished a lot of things, but right now, he just had to hope the right words would be extrapolated out of him. Perhaps if he pushed him just a bit harder. . .

“If I remember correctly, you were the one who pestered me about my future first.” His hopes deflated again, replaced by exasperation at Sherlock’s misinterpretation of his words.

“I wasn’t pestering you, I was just asking the question! I wanted to get an idea of what would happen after all this is over!”

“What do you mean ‘after all this?’ You’re going home!” Sherlock’s voice noticeably cracked a bit on the last sentence, but he collected himself and quickly talked through it. “ _ Abroad _ actually. So why would you bother asking me about what will happen when summer ends? You’re the one who’s leaving.”

Hot moisture prickled at the corners of his eyes, and he blinked it away furiously. He hated that Sherlock had a point. He hated that he had no response that would not expose his heart in a possibly fatal way. He hated that after weeks of constructing and reconstructing this conversation in his head, it had gone like this instead. He waited until the lump in his throat had subsided and he could trust his voice not to betray him before speaking again.

“I just . . . wanted to know if there was a chance that-”

“A chance of what? Why would either of us change our life’s ambitions for some stupid summer fling?”

And there it was. The answer to his question. The final knife to his heart. Invisible walls were closing in around him. Every unspoken word that remained in his mind wrapped tightly around his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think.

Juliet faltered backwards a few steps, like he would have done if he were standing, while he stared at him speechlessly.

“What?” Sherlock asked when he took in his reaction, although the vulnerability and regret in his widened eyes did not match the abrasiveness in his demeanor.

John’s mouth opened and closed a few times as Juliet continued to back him up, step by step. Finally, he tore his bulging eyes away from Sherlock and pulled on Juliet’s reins, turning her around and galloping home as fast as he could.  

**********

John slammed his bedroom door shut behind him.

_ It was a mistake. It was all a mistake _ , he repeated to himself as he drew his curtains shut. He crouched beside his bed and began fishing around underneath.

_ I never should have wandered into the woods that day _ , he thought, pulling out the black, leather-bound sketchbook Sherlock had gotten him.

_Never should have snuck out to the stables._ _Never should have agreed to lessons._ He tore out page after page of his drawings of Sherlock. Sherlock reading the paper. Sherlock grooming Selene. Sherlock eating breakfast.

_ Never should have let him kiss me.  _ Close ups of his hands. His eyes. His lips.

_ Never should have gone to the carnival. _ He shoved all his torn out drawings back under the bed until they were completely hidden and tossed the book carelessly out of sight.

_ I never should have fallen for him _ .

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes as hot tears prickled at the corners again. He could storm and rant and wallow in pity for himself, but he would absolutely not, under any circumstances, cry over Sherlock Holmes.

He had been so sure that Sherlock felt the same about him. As scared as he was of what might’ve become of their relationship once he went back home, he was always sure that they both at least wanted to try. His worst fear was that Sherlock would suggest it was for the best if they moved on from each other. Or that they would try keeping in touch, but find that it just wasn’t the same between them anymore. The cold harshness and complete detachment he had just received from Sherlock had never even entered the realms of his imagination in his most nightmarish scenarios.

A soft knock came at the door, but he ignored it. He was not in any mood to see or talk to Sherlock. He didn’t care to hear any apologies or excuses he could possibly have to offer. The knock came again, and John was tempted to throw something at the door, or yell at him fuck off.

“Mr. Watson?” came a voice he was not expecting to hear.

He lifted his face from his hands and stared at the door for a moment before reluctantly getting up and opening it.

Wallace stood before him, looking tall and hawk-like as ever. “Mr. Watson, Mistress Holmes has asked me to tell you to pack your things immediately. You are being sent home.”

John felt a sensation like being plunged into a tub of ice cold water.

“I’m . . . what?”

“A limo will be arriving shortly to take you back to London. You must have your things packed as quickly as possible.”

“But why?”

“Mrs. Watson had requested for you to return to London. Your father has fallen gravely ill and she wishes for you to see him.”

John heard the unspoken “one last time” at the end of the sentence, and suddenly felt off-balance. He swayed on the spot, as if a hard blow to his gut had just knocked the breath out of him. 

“Mistress Holmes sends her apologies for not delivering the message herself,” Wallace continued. “She is preoccupied making arrangements for the driver to come as soon as possible. Are you in need of assistance in packing your belongings?”  

“No. No, thank you.” John slowly lowered himself onto the side of his bed, feeling horribly dizzy as black spots began to dance in the corners of his vision.

Wallace respectfully tipped his head and disappeared back down the hallway.

John braced his hands on his knees as he digested what he’d just heard. His father was ill. He was leaving Sussex. Leaving the manor and Vicki, possibly forever.

Leaving Sherlock.

And his dad . . . The news of his illness shocked him more than anything else. It was more of a surprise that someone like his dad, who seemed to be made of stone, could succumb to something as mundane and human as an illness. In all his life, he never remembered him displaying any kind of weakness or vulnerability in front of him or Harry. But John figured it must have been quite serious if he was being sent home. He stayed put on the bed for a few more moments, feeling like he would upturn everything in his stomach if he moved. 

John rose from his bed after a minute or so, feeling numb and weightless, and began to gather his belongings. He had begun to feel quite at home in his cozy bedroom, with its maroon drapes and small chandelier. All summer he’d had a plush four poster bed and quaint balcony overlooking the backyard. And of course, it was lovely having Sherlock directly across the hall . . .

Sherlock.

The thought of him sent a jolt of fear through him. Where the hell was he? How long would it take for him to return?

John packed his clothes into his duffel bag as slowly as he could, prolonging the moment he’d have to head downstairs. He grew increasingly nervous with each passing moment that he did not hear the familiar heavy footsteps pattering down the hall.

What would he even say if he were to burst into the room right now? He’d like to think that they wouldn’t just awkwardly stare at each other, both equally uncomfortable and lost for words after their last encounter, but he somehow knew that’s exactly what would happen. Yet the thought of leaving without seeing him one last time had him drowning in pain and regret.

At last the moment came when he could not think of another reason to prolong his departure. His duffel and backpack were zipped up at his feet. He swept over the room one last time, fully knowing he wouldn’t find anything he'd forgotten, since he'd already searched it three times in attempt to delay.

He collected his bags and headed downstairs.

**********

The same limo he had arrived in was already pulled up to the front of the manor. The engine was rumbling impatiently, waiting to snatch him away.

Vicki and William joined him at the front door to escort him out. John found several excuses to delay setting a single foot outside the manor. He re-tied his shoelaces about four times, triple checked for various belongings that he knew he had already packed, and backtracked to the kitchen to take an apple on the road. He did his best to ignore Vicki’s pitying looks when he craned his neck towards the woods each time he passed a window. With each glance that showed him the same empty backyard and undisturbed trees, his heart rate grew quicker and quicker. At last, William kindly placed a comforting hand on his back and led him to the door, forcing him to abandon whatever excuse he would have used next to stall further.

Outside, Vicki wrapped him into a teary hug, constricting his chest and airways. But when she pulled away, he instantly felt colder and would have gladly exchanged everything in his bags to be enveloped in her loving warmth again.

“I’m so sorry Sherlock hasn’t come back yet, dear,” she said quietly. “I wish we could keep you longer. We’ll tell him goodbye from you, alright?”

Unable to meet her eye, John acknowledged her offer with a weak nod before turning to William. Their hands joined in a firm handshake.

“Alright. In you go,” Vicki said, dabbing her eyes and opening the door for him.

“Thank you for everything,” John said to her, unable to stop himself from glancing over her shoulders. He couldn't help hoping he'd see someone running around the corner of the house or bursting out the front door.

“Oh, none of that now. It was our pleasure. Have a safe journey.” She ushered him in, helping him arrange his bags at his feet.

The door closed with a definitive thud, sealing out the sounds of the world around him. The moment the car lurched forward, his panic rose into his throat. This was real. He was leaving right now, and Sherlock hadn’t returned from the woods yet. He turned around and plastered his palms against the glass, desperately searching every inch of the manor’s grounds that he could see. Vicki and William waved from the driveway, under the impression that he was looking at them.

The manor shrunk behind him as the limo rolled off the driveway and down the path leading away from the property. The thick perimeter of trees had never looked darker and more lifeless. 

The limo turned around a corner and the manor disappeared from sight completely. 

John’s entire body ached with numbness as he turned back around to sit properly in his seat. He couldn't stop the screaming protests in his head The hope that something miraculous would happen, as if he were in a drama film. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, even if it was just a summer fling, as Sherlock had said. He was supposed to have another two weeks with him where they could sort out their problems. They were supposed to have a proper goodbye. A game plan for the future. Their fight in the woods wasn’t supposed to be the last thing they might ever say to each other.

He rested his head against the cool window. It somehow felt too top-heavy for him to carry its weight anymore.

What he felt for Sherlock all summer was more than a crush. Somehow he felt he’d known that since the very beginning, but couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it until now. Crushes never left him feeling how he did the morning after their first night together. Crushes didn’t have him daydreaming years into the future. Crushes didn’t have him wanting to know every detail of someone’s past, every moment that had led them to become the person they are now.

Crushes didn’t incite a fear of the future in him unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Crushes didn’t leave him aching and torn in pieces upon departing from them, like he was right now.

Sherlock had somehow become ingrained into his very being. He would always hold onto the memory of him, even if they never saw each other again. Sherlock was his first love. Maybe even his only love.                                     

He realized that now. Those unidentifiable feelings he had been actively trying to ignore – he had identified them. He had only been in Sussex for six weeks, and in that time he’d managed to fall hopelessly in love with Sherlock Holmes.

He remembered the story Vicki had told him in his first few weeks here. About the manor and all who had found love on its grounds. All who had discovered a home and happiness for themselves there.  About her hope raising Sherlock in such a place would protect him from the ugliness of the world.

“Hearts don’t break around here,” she’d said to him. Well . . . his did.

 

His did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... yeah, I'll go ahead and add the "eventual happy ending" tag now so that you guys don't murder me :D 
> 
> *hides from you under a blanket*


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quick POV change in the beginning of this chapter, and then we're back to John

************ SHERLOCK ************  


By the time Sherlock led Selene back into her stable, the sun was disappearing low into the horizon. Hot shades of pink and orange stretched overhead, broken up by clusters of blue-tinted clouds.

He had spent the rest of the afternoon going over his conversation with John over and over again in his head. He had figured it was only a matter of time before John brought up the topic of their futures again, and he thought the discussion had gone just about how he expected it would. What had John been expecting? A happily ever after? That they would both abandon their plans and skip off into the sunset together? 

Much like John, he had spent the last several weeks evaluating their relationship, trying to figure out where they stood and what the future held for them, if anything at all. Trying to imagine a way this wouldn’t go down in flames in the end. On his own, he had come to the conclusion that it was not realistic to expect anything long-term to come of their summer together, even if John thought otherwise at the moment.

He hated to admit it, but he had grown much more attached to John that he ever expected he could in the short weeks they’d spent together; but he had to put his foot down somewhere and safeguard his heart first. John was the kind of person who people easily adored. He could certainly find a nice girl or guy and settle down with a white picket fence and cushy job if he chose to. Why would he stick around for him? No one ever did, and with time, John would prove to be no different. He could not risk giving John his everything, only for him to leave when he got tired of putting up with him.

What he and John had - it was nice while it lasted, but he could only fool himself for so long thinking someone like John would want to be with someone like him for the long run.

John may think they had a chance right now, but he knew better. He knew how people felt about him, and how easily they left. He knew John would not feel the same in a year, or two, or five. Especially with all the time they’d be spending apart, during which John could be meeting all types of new people, while he was left alone. He had to put a stop to this before he got burned by rejection. He hadn’t meant to hurt John so badly in doing it, but it had to be done.

He got Selene settled and comfortable back in her stable. When he turned to leave, he was interrupted by a distressed whine from a few gates over. He looked over to find Juliet hanging her head over the edge of the gate, staring at him with wide, pleading eyes.

“What is it?” he asked, somewhat irritably. He was exhausted and wanted to go home, but couldn’t leave with one of the horses desperately begging to be let loose.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, rubbing a soothing hand down her snout. Juliet huffed in his face and nudged the gate again.

“Don’t be ridiculous, he’s not here,” Sherlock said. Juliet’s efforts grew more urgent at his words, as she tried more desperately than ever to open her gate.

“Easy, easy!” he said, holding her back as best as he could without the assistance of any reins. “What’s the matter with you? You rode with him only a couple hours ago!”

At this, she made another distressed sound, almost like she was in pain, accompanied by a flash of begging eyes.

“Stop being so dramatic,” Sherlock muttered. “You’ll see him again tomorrow.”

He tossed two apples into her stable and departed after another half-hearted rub to her snout. He offered Selene an apple on his way out to appease her jealous glare. As he shut the door behind him, he did his best to ignore the soft whines coming from where Juliet’s head remained poked over the gate, her apples completely ignored.

**********

Sherlock closed the door to the back porch as quietly as he could before heading towards the kitchen. During all the drama of the afternoon, he realized he’d completely forgotten to eat. Not that it made much of a difference to him, but he knew John would be on his case if he didn’t have something.

He grabbed a banana and munched absent-mindedly on it as he leaned over the counter, flipping haphazardly through the magazine his mum had left out. If he was honest, he just needed to give his hands something to do. His mind was somewhere else entirely. The more he thought about it, the more he really didn’t like the way things had been left between him and John.

Obviously he’d hurt his feelings more than he’d intended, but John had been the one to bring up the topic in the first place. He was the one who had wanted to discuss his departure while they could have been enjoying their first morning together. And again when they were only just recovering from their first fight. Why couldn’t he have just left things alone? 

Regardless of what was intended, it was his fault John was upset, and understandably so. At the very least, he needed to check and make sure that he was alright. He hoped that he would understand that just being friends would save them both the inevitable heartache when he left Sussex and they both moved on with their lives. He hoped even more desperately that he’d be willing to spend his last two weeks with him amicably.

He tossed the banana peel into the trash and headed for the stairs. As he entered the living room, his mum and dad’s heads snapped towards him so suddenly, he nearly jumped.

“Sherlock!” His mum rose from the couch and approached him. “We were wondering when on earth you’d be home! You just missed him.”

“What?” Sherlock asked, trying to make sense out of whatever nonsense had just spilled out of her mouth. He looked suspiciously between his parents. They were acting oddly, almost as if he were a minefield they were tip-toeing around.

“What happened?” he demanded. “Where’s John?”

If there was one thing he hated, it was people’s refusal to be direct for the sake of safeguarding someone else’s feelings. It was such a waste of time when the outcome would be the same regardless of the approach.

“Oh, Sherlock, sweetheart.” His mum glanced worriedly between him and his dad a few times. His dad tipped his head encouragingly at her to continue.

“John’s not here anymore.” She looked at him pityingly.

“Did he go back out to find me? I didn’t see him on my way back in. Are you sure he’s not just in his room?”

“No, honeybee,” she said, stroking his arm consolingly. Sherlock cringed at the use of one of his many pet names. At least she had the common decency to never use them in front of others once he was past the age of eight. “The driver left to take him back to London about thirty minutes ago.”

Sherlock’s heart froze in his chest. His mind replayed what she said about five times before he finally understood. Horror and panic rose within him as he realized the severity of what he’d said back out in the fields. He knew John had been angry with him, but he didn’t realize he’d ask to be sent home. His mind short circuited as conflicting thoughts battled one another for the foreground in his mind.

This was all his fault.   _ He doesn’t need to keep running away every time he gets upset! _ Yes, but who was the one who made him feel insignificant and unwanted in the first place?  _ He didn’t even say goodbye . . . _

“Sherlock, sweetheart. You mustn’t be angry with him. Todd isn’t well and his mother wanted him to go home and be with family.”

Sherlock’s head snapped up, relief flooding through him before he’d fully digested her words. Then, a new horror settled into his stomach.

“His father is ill?”

She nodded gravely.

“How bad?”

“Angie didn’t tell me much on the phone, but it didn’t sound good. It’s serious enough that she wanted John sent back immediately. I’m so sorry we couldn’t have waited for you, sweet pea.” She rubbed up and down his arm again, but Sherlock’s mind had already moved on.

John was gone. He had left permanently. Their summer together had ended prematurely by two weeks.

He repeated the facts to himself in his mind over and over in several variations.

“No,” he breathed, shaking his head. He pulled free from his mother’s grip and darted up the stairs. When he reached the third floor, he sprinted down the hallway and pulled John’s door open, only to find it dark and abandoned. Empty of John and therefore sucked free of every bit of joy and light that had ever touched it.

He didn’t know what he’d expected. Perhaps to find John laying back on his bed, sketching lazily with one ankle crossed over his propped up knee, his aura of sunshine illuminating the room and stripping away the blanket of cold darkness that was now draped over it.

He lowered himself onto the side of his bed. He could still feel a hint of warmth from where John had probably sat in this exact spot, not even an hour ago, packing his things. He had known about his dad from the start, of course. He knew how he treated his son and wife. He did not have enough information to deduce his treatment of the sister, Harriet, but he got the impression that John had taken every precaution to protect her from the same abuse. This, of course, was all obvious to him from the moment he laid eyes on John all those weeks ago, in this exact room.

But he had always respected John’s wishes to never discuss him. He kept his mouth shut, like he was supposed to. Now the man had fallen seriously ill and John had been whisked away at a moment’s notice to see him on what was likely his death bed. Since they had never once discussed him, he had no idea how to know what John was going through. Was he upset? Angry? Resentful? He ached to know. And most of all, he hated that he could not be there for him. As a friend. A friend that John most likely did not even want anymore, and it was entirely his fault. 

He leaned forward and braced his forearms on his knees. When he readjusted his feet to accommodate the weight shift, his left heel grazed something on the floor much smoother than the rug.

He slid off the bed. Ducking his head to look under the bed skirt, he found several loose and scattered pieces of paper. He gathered them all into his hands and raised them up to where he could see.

They were drawings. Of himself. Doing mundane, everyday things. But he recognized the loose, sporadic strokes of John’s skilled hands, the interpretative style and the slant of the cross-hatched areas that could only have resulted from a left-handed artist.

He placed his hand over his mouth as his breathing grew ragged. Regret pierced him deep into his core.

“Oh, John.”

 

************ JOHN ************

 

Soft rain pellets decorated the clouded glass of the window. John lifted his head from where he was leaning and noticed that the sloppy designs he had drawn into the mist had fogged over again. The limo lurched to a stop outside his flat, and he gathered his bags while the driver opened the door for him.

He had hardly stepped out of the vehicle before a pair of arms was thrown around him, nearly knocking him backwards.

“Oh my god, John!” cried a voice which was muffled both by his shoulder and the down-pouring rain. The aching numbness in his chest was momentarily replaced by a welcome warmth. John wrapped his free arm around his sister’s back and pulled her in tight, pressing his face into her hair. Cold rain continued to dampen his head and trickle down his back as they embraced on the sidewalk.

When she pulled back, he got his first proper look at her. He knew it had been less than two months, but she seemed to have grown an inch or so since he last saw her. Perhaps it only seemed that way because of how much he missed her. Her sandy blonde hair had grown longer. Her skin was tanned and the freckles around her nose were more prominent due to the sun exposure.  He grinned and looked back into her glassy, green eyes, which were staring up at him with unabashed joy.

Behind her, the door to their flat opened. John looked over her shoulder and saw a frail woman hovering on the doorstep in a dressing gown, shielding herself from the rain.

John slowly approached until he was standing directly in front of her. For a moment, they just looked at each other. Her wispy, almost-transparent, blonde hair seemed to have thinned significantly since he last saw her. Her washed-out blue eyes had sunk deeper into their sockets, and a few new wrinkles had been etched into her skin.

“Oh, John,” she finally breathed, and pulled him in. He wrapped his arms around her back and shoulder, feeling like they were comforting one another rather than reuniting.

She led him into the flat while Harry collected his duffel from the limo, most likely sneaking a quick peek inside as well.

The flat pretty much hadn’t changed since he left. The same slightly burnt smell still emitted from the kitchen. The air was thick and muggy as it usually was in the summer, due to their faulty thermostat. The T.V. was on in the living room, providing the same, constant drone of background noise. One difference he noticed, however, was a pillow and a few blankets that were bunched up on the sofa. His mother must have been sleeping on the couch to avoid being near his ill father.

Harry helped him set his bags down in his room while his mum waited for him, leaning against the doorway.

“Well?” he asked when he was finished. She nodded and led them to a room on the other side of the flat.

Inside his parents’ bedroom, a great lump lay on the bed, covered in layer and layers of blankets.

He approached and took in the sight of his father, weaker and thinner than he’d ever seen him. His eyes were closed, and his face completely slack. His normally reddish skin had flushed to a sickly pale color. John almost couldn’t recognize him without the scowl that was always on his face whenever he looked at him.

“What happened? John asked quietly.

“He had been feeling weak for about quite a few days, but one night he just sort of passed out,” his mother told him soothingly, with a hand on his back. “I kept him in this room, to keep him away from Harriet and the rest of the flat, and tried my best to nurse him back to health.”

John understood. Growing up, no one from their family ever saw a doctor unless for a required checkup or physical, to avoid paying hospital bills. If they fell ill, his mum was always able to handle the situation on her own.

“When I check on him this morning, I found that his temperature had shot up and he wasn’t responding.”

“Why didn’t you call Susan?” John asked, wondering how she could have accepted his fate so easily without trying everything in her power to seek help. Susan Sawyer was a doctor friend of his parents. Whenever one of them caught an illness or suffered an injury too serious for her to treat, they called her to come take a look. Susan was very understanding of the fact that they wanted to avoid hospital bills as much as possible, and always helped them to the best of her abilities.

“She’s travelling, but I did call her. She said she couldn’t diagnose anything without being here and highly advised me to check him into a hospital. I was about to do it. But when I described his symptoms in more detail, Susan said . . .”

“What?”

His mum took a moment to compose herself. “She said it sounded like he had hours to live, if even that.”

“Oh my god,” John breathed, looking down at the pale, weakened body on the bed.

“She still pushed me to check him in, but from her voice I could tell there was a slim chance of anything being done. I don’t want his last moments to be in a hospital bed surrounded by strangers who can do nothing for him.”

“Why did you wait so long? How could you not call the hospital?”

“You know why I can’t do that.”

“So you’re just going to let him die?”

“John, it was highly unlikely anything could be done for him, from what Susan told me. All we would be left with is a hoard of bills we can’t pay. It’s not what he would have wanted me to do anyway.”

John looked down at Harry, who was watching him with watery eyes, and then turned back to his dad. He wanted to say that of course it’s what his dad would have wanted. He would be happy to put them all in debt if it meant saving him. In the past, he’s had no problem putting them in the hole for the sake of his gambling and drinking. But he couldn’t say that. Not when his mother and sister were here, while they were standing at his dying father’s bedside.

He stepped closer to the bed, his insides war-torn from a hundred different feelings, all violently tearing him in different directions.  

He peered down into his father’s cold, nearly bloodless face. This man had choked him, punched him, slapped him, and verbally abused him to no end. He had spent most of his childhood fearing him, and most of this summer viciously hating him.

But he was also his dad. He took him to his first day of school every year. He first introduced him to rugby when he was six. He had once spent his bonus check on his very first set of nice graphite pencils. He gave him advice on asking girls out to school dances.

Moisture welled up in his eyes. The water building up in his tear ducts was only the tip of iceberg inside him. Just the surface of all the built up confusion and reasons he knew he would never,  _ ever _ feel at peace thinking of his father.

He would never know what would've happened to Harry if he’d told the truth about why he fought those boys. Or what would have happened to him if he'd decided to bring home a boyfriend one day. He’d never never know if one day his dad would've done more than slap his mother during a night of heavy drinking. He’d never know if his alcoholism would have ever reached a point where he himself would have to take the family off somewhere and cut ties.

He’d never know if he would have come around to accepting his sexuality one day. Or if Harry would ever feel safe enough to come out to him. Or if one day he would have cleaned up his act and made things right with him and the family.

Everything about him would always be a giant question mark, a conflict between two opposing traits of his, and he’d never know which would have triumphed over the other in the future.

Closure. That’s what this was about. He’d never get closure.

His mother stepped up behind him and whispered in his ear.

“He can’t respond, but he can hear you.”

John nodded stiffly and leaned forward a bit more. He could barely see his dad’s large chest rising and falling underneath the pile of blankets. If he hadn’t been looking for that small sign of life, he would have thought he had already passed.

“Dad, it’s . . . it’s me. It’s John,” he said, his voice sounding coarse and raspy to his own ears.

“I . . .” His voice dropped to a whisper just between the two of them, even though he knew Harry and his mum would still be able to hear.

“I love you and . . . I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes as another hot tear of frustration and inner turmoil slid down the bridge of his nose. He was sorry for what? He had no idea why he’d said that. It just seemed like the right thing to say in the moment. He mostly felt sorry that nothing would ever be resolved between them. There was always the tiniest possibility in his head that his dad would change and fix himself up in the future. But now they’d never have that chance.

His mum put his hand on his shoulder, and suddenly it was too much. He placed his hand over hers in a small gesture of acknowledgement, but then turned around and left the room. He had to get out of there.

He opened the front door and sat on the steps outside, heaving in breaths of muggy air. Shielded by the roof over the porch, he watched the rain plunging down in sheets, splashing on the ground, filling gutters and pot holes in the road. Cabs, buses, and cars zoomed by, spraying light mist over the sidewalks, blissfully unaware of what was happening on the other side of the walls they passed without a second thought.

For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel the urge to escape his troubles by sketching away in his book. Not even the nice, leather-bound one that sat in his duffel. The one he’d considered leaving behind, but decided against it at the last moment. The thought pierced his heart, viciously slicing through the numbness that had overcome him since sitting outside.

He pushed it away and reached down to mindlessly tear at the grass sticking up between cracks in the sidewalk. He noticed the vast difference between the overgrown weeds he was currently tearing into halves and the freshly trimmed grass that coated the Holmes’s lawn. The image sent another sharp puncture into his chest, and he shut it down instantly. He couldn’t think about them now.

He didn’t know how long he sat out there, slowly running out of weeds to rip out of the cement, feeling his fingers grow numb from the chilly mist of the rain. But after sometime, he heard a small shriek through the window screen above him, the one he knew led to his parents’ bedroom. The quiet sobs could barely be heard over the patter of water above his head, but he knew. He knew what had just happened.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t even tear up. The dull, aching numbness in his torso just spread through his limbs and into every one of his fingers and toes. He stared hypnotically at the rain and allowed his mind to disassociate, while his tingling fingers continued to robotically tear the pavement weeds into shreds.

 

***********

 

John lifted his chin in front of the mirror and buttoned the top of his black shirt.  He ran a hand over his gelled back hair to fix a stray strand, and tucked his shirt tail into his slacks.

It had been two days since his father’s death. And for that entire time, he had felt like he was on the verge of bursting. It felt like there was a constant bubble of anger and grief inside him, ready to explode at any moment. But he had to stay strong. If not for the sake of his pride, then for his family. For Harry.

He slipped his arms into the sleeves of his suit jacket and buttoned the lapels together. The suit looked like something Sherlock would wear, he noticed – all posh and trim and proper.

The bubble in his chest rose towards his throat, and he swallowed it back down, along with any and all thoughts of Sherlock. He could not think of him right now, under any circumstances. Sherlock didn’t want him, he reminded himself. Not in the way John wanted him, at least. He’d made that more than perfectly clear during their last conversation. John fixed himself with a determined look in the mirror. He needed to get a grip on and move on, he told himself.

_ Sherlock probably already has _ , he thought additionally, feeling a lead weight dropped in his stomach.

A soft knock came at his door. He looked away from the mirror to see Harry peeking into his room. Her hair was in a tight French braid, and she wore a simple, black dress that fell loosely to her knees.

“Ready?” she asked.

**********

John stood with his face lowered towards his feet as the men carrying the casket passed in front of him. His frozen white knuckles grasped his umbrella handle tighter while the other hand remained snug in his pocket, protected from the icy rain. 

The circle of guests around him had been kept intimate.  Harry stood next to him, also holding an umbrella and shivering in her pocket-less dress. His mother was behind them, with one hand placed comfortingly on Harry’s shoulder. Behind the three of them were five people that John only briefly knew. One was a neighbor who had babysat John and Harry when they were little. One was his dad’s childhood friend who also happened to live in London. The last three were couple friends of his parents, and their eleven-year-old son.

Across the rectangular pit in the ground stood another very small group of people. Susan Sawyer’s husband was here, he noticed, with their daughter Sarah. Susan must have still been traveling. There were two men in sharp suits, who much have been coworkers, and an older woman, who John knew to be his dad's old boss, whom he had loved dearly.

The men began lowering the casket into the ground, and a lump rose in his throat so suddenly he almost choked. The tight knot in the back of his head that had been threatening to burst for the last two days now pushed forward unstoppably. Hot tears prickled at the corners of his eyes, and this time, he could not blink them away quickly enough. The lump in his throat rose higher and higher until he was sealing his lips shut to contain the silent sob that threatened to erupt out of him.

_ Don’t, _ he coached himself. His dad never cried in front of them.  _ Be the man,  _ he said. _ Be strong for Harry and mum. _

He watched the men lift their shovels and begin scooping dirt into the hole at his feet. Images of his father flashed through his mind as bit by bit, the shiny brown surface that separated him from his corpse was covered.

He thought of his dad running alongside him as he wobbled down the street without his training wheels for the first time. He thought of him helping him unbox his first rugby uniform.

Then years later, stuffing that uniform in the bin and telling him he had to quit the team. Staring at him with murder in his eyes one drunken night when John had stood bravely between him and his mum.

At last, the sob he’d been swallowing burst from his mouth, although nothing could be heard over the whistling winds and pattering rain. Hot streaks of wetness poured down his cheeks.

_ Enough, _ he scolded himself.  _ Be strong. Be a man _ . But it was no use. The tears were openly falling, and he could only hope that anyone who looked up at him from under their umbrellas would chalk up his water-streaked face to the rain.

He thought of himself back in Sussex, on horseback next to Sherlock. Of all those hours he’d spent over the summer viciously and shamelessly hating his father.

_ “I fucking hate his guts,” _ echoed his voice in his head.

He choked out another strangled sob as conflicting feelings of resentment and grief wrestled inside him. The casket was completely covered, and men were now continuing to shovel in heaps of dirt to fill the hole.

Then, he felt it more than he saw it.

As if a silent siren were calling to him, he turned his head under his umbrella to find a sleek, black limo pulling up on the gravel road behind the funeral. Everyone else’s gazes remained fixed to the ground, but he saw it. He saw as the back door opened and a long leg clad in perfectly tailored slacks poked out. The door widened and out stepped a tall figure with a wild head of dark curls, and piercing, turquoise eyes that were frantically searching the many umbrella-covered backs of the funeral.

By their own accord, John’s legs carried him through the group separating him and Sherlock. He floated past Harry, his mum, and the other five guests that had been standing behind him as though he were entranced. At last, Sherlock’s eyes found his, and relief visibly washed over his rain-stricken face. He couldn’t hear it over the rain, but he saw his name form on those full lips. And suddenly, he was jogging towards him . . . running, sprinting.

He threw himself into Sherlock’s open arms before he knew what he was doing. One hand fisted tightly into the back of his suit, and the other pressed into his back while holding his umbrella over the both of them. Sherlock’s arms wrapped around him in return, pulling him in even tighter.

He didn’t realize he was shaking until he felt similar vibrations from Sherlock’s chest against his own. As he heaved and wept openly onto the already wet shoulder pad of his suit, only one though replayed in his mind, in several variations.

_ He’s here . . . He came for me . . . He's here . . . _

Sherlock’s cheek pressed into the side of his head, and John could have sworn he heard muffled snivels in his ear, as well as feeling some shakes and shivers similar to his own. He turned his face from his shoulder and pressed it into the soft warmth of his neck, and felt Sherlock dip his head to do the same. 

No words needed to be spoken, and John didn’t care if all eyes from the funeral were now fixed on their embrace, or if no one had seen him slip away. He only cared that his arms remained iron tight around Sherlock’s back, and Sherlock’s remained around his. 

And they did remain that way. For the rest of the funeral they remained right there, locked in each other's arms, concealed only by the thin streams of water trickling over the tips of the umbrella in a circle around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize ahead of time if next update is a bit late, cause life/school is getting kinda crazy. As always thanks for reading, and I hope you're enjoying :)
> 
> [edit:] I actually don't know how healthcare and medical bills work in the UK, and I didn't research it much because the death needed to happen regardless. So please ignore any technical/factual errors if you can k thanks!


	10. Chapter 10

Some hours after the funeral, John and Sherlock found themselves sitting under a tree in an isolated park. A blanket was spread underneath them to protect their trousers from the ground, which remained soggy and saturated from the storm. The air was thick and humid, but the sky had cleared to reveal a vast expanse of blue-grey. For a while, the two of them simply sat, content in one another’s company, watching the summer breezes cause the swings to gently sway and the fallen leaves to dance on the ground.

“Juliet missed you a lot,” Sherlock said, after some time.

John turned to look at the boy sitting beside him. His unfocused, oceanic eyes remained fixed on a point far beyond the park, but his voice was quiet and near.

“Just Juliet?” he asked.

Sherlock met his gaze. Focus and understanding began to clear the dazed look in his eyes.

“I missed you, too.”

He tentatively lifted the hand that was resting between them and pushed John’s fringe back from his forehead. He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his hairline, tender and delicate as if kissing a newborn. John sighed when he pulled away, and lowered his head onto his shoulder, feeling all of his burdens seep out of him along with his will to hold up his own weight.

He picked up Sherlock’s hand and began idly playing with his long, bony fingers. His mind, meanwhile, wandered back to Sussex. Back to all the memories and conflicts he had so actively tried to shut down since he left.

It was somehow much easier to think of them now, rather than when he had first returned home. His father’s funeral seemed to have cleared his mind - numbed it, so to speak, of his tendency to allow emotions to cloud his judgement and thought patterns. Even now, he thought of the last words Sherlock had said to him before his departure - the words that had sliced into his very core and left him devoid of every bit of hope he had for their joined future – and he felt nothing. He was empty.

Sherlock had made it clear that what they had in Sussex was a summer fling and nothing more. But they were no longer in Sussex. Sherlock had come to him in London, when he knew he needed him. When he knew he was hurting. That had to count for something, didn’t it?

“You came for me,” he stated simply, as if hearing it spoken aloud would solidify the fact. Instantly, he felt somewhat stupid for iterating the obvious.

“I did.”

“On your own.”

“My parents didn’t want us to show up uninvited. They knew your mum was keeping the ceremony as local and intimate as possible. But I . . . I needed to see you. So I called up the driver and left a note for my mum and dad. I think they knew beforehand what I was planning, but they didn’t try to stop me.”

John grinned privately, and for the first time since his father’s death, he felt a tiny flicker of warmth ignite in his chest. He fondly recalled the night Sherlock had dragged him out to the woods in the middle of the night, only to force him to strip and jump into a pond with him.

“How often do you actually sneak out?” he asked, beginning to feel like this was a regular occurrence for him.

He heard the mischievous smile in his voice. “Often enough that my parents shouldn’t be surprised anymore.”

John chuckled faintly and felt the flame in his chest blossom outwards, pushing out the grey numbness that had previously consumed him.

“Why did you come?” he asked more quietly.

Sherlock’s reply was almost a whisper. “Why wouldn’t I?” After a pause, he added with a hint of uncertainty, “You would have come for me, would you not?”

_ Yes, I would,  _ John thought _. Because I love you _ .

John ceased his idle toying with Sherlock’s hand and instead laced their fingers together, raising their joined hands to press a kiss to his knuckles.

“You know what I mean.”

Sherlock sighed at his failure to divert from the question.

“John,” he began slowly, as if preparing to deliver a lengthy response.

John interrupted him by lifting his head off his shoulder. The sound of running footsteps was rapidly approaching them from behind. They had only just separated their hands and scooted apart instinctively when Harry wheeled around the tree, red-faced and panting.

“Thought I’d find you two here!” she said triumphantly, giving no hint that she’d noticed anything going on between them. “Clara and I were betting on if you’d be here or back at the flat. She thought you’d be at home because she thinks you’re kind of a loser and wouldn’t take your friend out anywhere. But I thought you’d bring him here since you  _ always _ come here with that book of yours.”

She continued to yammer on, completely oblivious to the fact that she’d interrupted anything. She told them of how she and Clara had gone for a walk together after the funeral. Clara’s mom let her get purple streaks in her hair. But Harry thought blue would have looked better with her eyes. Clara made them stop in their favorite coffee shop on the way home to show her the new bartender, her sister’s new boyfriend. He gave them free ice teas and muffins with extra chocolate chips. They have a new way of making the biscuits now, by the way, which John would love, apparently.

John and Sherlock exchanged an amused look as she filled them in on every detail of the last few hours they had spent apart.

“Anyway,” she said, once she stopped for breath. “Mum found us on her way home from visiting with the Sawyers. They wanted to give her company after the funeral. She wants us home for dinner now. You too, Sherlock.”

John and Sherlock exchanged a small, private smile - a promise to continue their conversation at a later time. He rolled up the blanket they had been sitting on and tucked it under his arm.

They followed Harry back to the flat, who walked between them and continued giving John a full account of everything she had done over the summer. Every now and then, she stopped to ask Sherlock if he’d ever experienced anything like what she was talking about, as if he lived in some far away, magical land where nothing was the same. Sherlock answered graciously enough, although John did not fail to detect his hidden amusement at her innocent enthusiasm.

**********

“Thank you for letting me spend the night here, Mrs. Watson,” Sherlock said as he cut his knife into his pasta.

“It’s the least I could do,” she said, placing a platter of rolls in the center of the table before sitting in the seat beside John.

“The food is delicious,” he added, taking another forkful. Mrs. Watson smiled gratefully at him, as though no one ever took the time to show gratitude for her cooking.

From across the table John quirked his eyebrow at him, silently asking when he became such an angel. Sherlock smirked back at him and shrugged.

“Do you have a personal chef that brings you your meals?” Harry asked loudly, from her seat next to Sherlock.

“Harriet!” yelled Mrs. Watson. John rolled his eyes at yet another one of his sister’s never ending questions.

“What?” Harry asked innocently, unaware that she had said anything wrong. Sherlock nearly choked on his water from suppressing his laughter.

“No, no it’s alright. My mum does most of the cooking, actually. She enjoys it and has never had any interest in hiring a chef.”

“But they do have a butler,” John added, deciding to humor her.

“Wow,” Harry breathed in awe, as if he had just revealed Sherlock had a fairy godmother.

They continued to eat and engage in mindless chatter. John noticed his mum glancing every now and then at the empty spot his dad used to occupy. He reached over and placed his hand over hers, offering her a small smile. She returned it, allowing herself a moment to privately mourn while clutching her son’s hand. After a moment, she returned to the present and told Harry off for asking Sherlock if he traveled by private jet.

**********

Mrs. Watson gave Sherlock John’s room to sleep in, since they did not have a guest bedroom to offer him in their small city flat. John, meanwhile, spread out a couple of blankets on the floor of Harry’s bedroom and settled in.

Harry stretched out on her bed and flicked off the bedside lamp. Several long moments of dark silence passed before her voice piped up.

“I like him. He’s cool,” she said, as if they were already deep into a discussion about Sherlock.

John grinned to himself, thinking about how long it had been since the two of them spent the night in one another’s rooms like this. They had shared a bedroom until John was eight years old and needed more privacy. Then, Harry had moved into the room that had previously been their dad’s office. But as they continued to grow up, the two of them still occasionally slept in each other’s rooms - during a thunderstorm, after a scary movie, or just so they could stay up well past their bedtimes talking in hushed whispers. They hadn’t done that in many years, though. Not since John was past the age of thirteen at least.

He realized Harry was still waiting for a response from him.

“Yeah, he’s . . . nice,” he finished awkwardly.

“Nice?” she asked, flabbergasted. “You went on and on in that letter about how tall and smart and mysterious and charming he was,” she said, exaggerating each adjective as though he had been gushing. “I almost got bored. I wanted to hear about all the rich people, not just him!”

“Yeah, and I also said ‘arrogant’ and ‘presumptuous.’”

“I don’t see it.”

John sighed and rolled over, reflecting on how much his perception of Sherlock had changed since he’d met him. He’d started writing the letter within a week of arriving in Sussex, when he and Sherlock were not yet on speaking terms. He’d gradually added more and more until he felt like he’d written enough to send to Harry. By then, he didn’t even think about going back to correct what he’d said in the beginning.

“Me neither,” he said quietly, feeling a sudden burst of love for Sherlock, in all his arrogance and presumptuousness, as well as his warmth, sincerity, and kindness.

“So why did you call him arrogant?”

John let out another deep sigh. “He changed a lot from the first impression I got of him. I thought he was a bit of a prick, but I got to know him better and . . . I don’t know. I realized he could be . . . kind, and . . . warm.”

He thought of Sherlock bringing him a plate of food when he hadn’t made an appearance at dinner. “And thoughtful . . .”

He remembered waking up to find the new sketchbook on his nightstand. “Generous . . .”

He remembered later that same night, the two of them standing of the edge of the rocky cliff. “Playful, and . . . funny.”

And at last, he remembered that moment in the stables with Sherlock. When he’d guided his hand forward and pressed it against Selene, and he could feel the warmth of his touch seeping into his skin.

“And human . . .” he added, almost in a whisper.

He noticed his voice had been trailing off as he spoke, growing more and more reverent and reflective.

He heard Harry snicker from her bed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were smitten, John,” she teased.

“Ha ha ha,” John said flatly. He was about to say that it wasn’t like that, but he thought there was no use in lying. There would be no harm in Harry finding out about them, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of outright telling her. He’d let her put the pieces together on her own. Given how oblivious she was, that could take years. But given her nosiness, it could also take only a day.  

“Look who’s talking,” he said. “You couldn’t shut up about Clara today.”

“We went on a date,” she said suddenly.

John’s eyebrows shot up. “You did?”

“Yeah. Well, I think it was a date. We went out for ice cream, and she held my hand. But we didn’t talk about it at all afterwards. So I don’t know.”

John smiled, feeling genuinely happy for his sister, but worried for her all the same, as a brother should be. He knew Harry had a tendency to let her feelings run wild, and grow attached to people and things very quickly. He silently hoped that she wouldn’t get hurt this early on in her love life.

“That sounds like a date, yeah. A version of dating for thirteen-year-old babies, at least,” he added teasingly. Suddenly, a small, fuzzy pillow hit him square in the face.

“Hey!”

“We’re not babies, John!”

“Then ask her out properly!”

“Fine, I will!”

“Fine!”

“I have more guts than you any day when it comes to this stuff!”

John was thankful she couldn’t see his grin falter in the dark as the truth of her words sunk into him. She was absolutely right. He was a coward when it came to discussing feelings and the like. He had had countless opportunities to speak with Sherlock back in Sussex, and had only summoned the courage at the very end. Now they just had to get the timing right and not be interrupted for the umpteenth time.

“I’m going to ask Sherlock for advice on asking her out in the morning,” Harry declared. “I bet he has better advice than you.”

John smirked to himself. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“You haven’t exactly set the bar very high.”

His grin stretched wider, and he realized yet again how much he had missed Harry over the summer, in all her stubbornness, sass, and candor.

“I hope you and Sherlock stay good friends,” she said through a yawn. John heard the rustle of blankets as she rolled over and settled into a new position. “I want to visit the manor someday and see the horses,” she added sleepily.

John huffed a weak laugh. “Yeah, maybe.” Several long moments passed in silence. John thought Harry had fallen asleep until he heard her voice again, soft and quiet in the dark.

“Goodnight, John.”

“G’night.”

He turned to lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling as several trains of thought circled his mind. In the course of six or seven weeks, Sherlock had become the single greatest thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life. He was everything he had been missing since he was old enough to notice feeling lonely. He had Harry, of course, who was wonderful. He had some casual friends that came and went, as friends did.

But he’d never had someone he wanted to give his all to. Someone with whom he wished to share everything, and who he wished to know everything about. He’d never had anyone fit so perfectly into his heart, and complement every one of his characteristics as if they were tailor made for one another.

He’d never had Sherlock.

At once, he was overcome with a burning need for him, as well as a pinch of possessiveness.

Sherlock was _his._ No matter what happened in their lives after all this, they’d belong to each other. Always.

John’s entire body was suddenly overcome with a buzzing need and desire to be close to Sherlock. To touch him and hear him breathe and feel the warmth radiating out of his body.

He heard a soft snore from Harry’s bed. Her breathing had been slow and even for a while, and he figured she had probably fallen into a deep sleep by now.

As silently as possible, he slithered out of his blankets and crept to the door. He cracked it open, wincing at the slight creak it created. He glanced once more back at Harry’s sleeping form before quickly slipping out.

He tip-toed down the short hallway and opened the door to his bedroom. He stepped inside and closed it behind him as quietly as possible.

“What took you so long?” came Sherlock’s drowsy voice, from where he lay in his small, single bed. John smiled and felt a familiar heat blossom in his chest. He crawled up onto his bed and lowered himself atop Sherlock.

“Impatient git,” he breathed, dipping his head down to kiss him.

The warmth shared between their combined body heat enveloped John as he pressed down onto him. They exchanged slow, sweet kisses until the concept of time was lost to them, until they were all that existed to each other. John eventually cupped Sherlock’s face in his hands to hold him still so he could kiss harder, pouring every ounce of his commitment, passion, and possessiveness into his efforts. Each time he pulled away, he made sure to take his bottom lip with him, barely giving him time to recover before he dove in again.

“John, listen,” Sherlock said breathlessly in between kisses. He placed his hands on John’s shoulders to hold him back from swooping in again. “What I said to you in the fields before you left. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know-”

“Shh. Not the time.” John cut him off by enveloping his lips between his own. When he pulled away, Sherlock spoke again.

John shushed him once more and dipped back down to swallow the rest of his words with another hard kiss. The last thing in the world he wanted to do right now was talk. Sherlock finally understood and moaned low and soft into his mouth, bringing his arms up to wrap around his back. He rolled them onto their sides, slotting a knee between his legs. John threw his leg atop Sherlock’s in return and pulled his hips in with his thighs. They both now had something to subtly rock against as they ran their hands up each other’s chests, shoulders, necks. Sherlock trailed his fingers through his short hair and dipped his face to nibble on his neck.

“I missed you,” he groaned. John hummed in response and allowed him to push him onto his back while he never lifted his face from his neck.

They kissed and kissed well into the hours of the night, occasionally almost slipping off either side of the single bed. They alternated from heavy panting and grinding to slow rocking and soft kisses, and then back again. While the world outside them slept soundly, they made up for every moment they spent apart, every moment they were angry with one another, and every moment they had thought it was over for good. 

It wasn’t over. They didn’t know what the future had in store for them, but they had right now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is unbeta'd (is that a word?). Also, sorry for the late update! Life got crazy. Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

John was vaguely aware of the faint scents of spicy cologne and expensive shampoo surrounding him. He was lying on his side with his bent knees slightly jutting off the edge of the small, single mattress. A long arm was curled around his naked chest, holding him tightly to the bare torso that was mashed up against his back. A face was tucked into the side of his neck, where soft puffs of breath tickled his skin, and curly tufts of hair brushed against his jaw.

Still sluggish from sleep, he grinned and turned his face to press a lazy kiss to the top of Sherlock’s head. He heard Sherlock sigh in his sleep and wrap his arm even tighter around his chest, if that was even possible. John laid his head back on his pillow, smiling contentedly and snuggling closer into the cocoon of warmth, security, and  _ Sherlock  _ that surrounded him, letting himself drift back into a peaceful slumber. 

**********

The second time John woke up, he had somehow maneuvered to the center of the bed, not that that took much movement. One half of the mattress was distinctly colder than the other, he noticed vaguely. He was lying on his stomach with one arm subconsciously extending out to where another body should have been, but instead he found it dangling off the other end of the bed.

He cracked his eyes open and realized he was alone in the room. Sherlock seemed to have woken up and slipped away as silently as he himself had escaped Harry’s room in the middle of the night.   

He rolled onto his back and stretched, allowing himself a moment to fully enjoy being in his own bed and bedroom again. It was a simple luxury he had not given himself the chance to full appreciate since he returned, what with his father’s death, the funeral, and all that followed. Everything in here was as familiar to him as the back of his hand. From the pale walls, to the posters of his favorite football team, to the pile of unfolded laundry on his desk chair. Everything was exactly as it had always been, except for three things: the leather-bound sketchbook on his nightstand, the glow-in-the-dark skull on his dresser, and the lingering scent of familiar shampoo and cologne that remained seeped into the fibers of his bedsheets.

A satisfied grin stretched across his face, and he rose from the bed, put on some clothes, and ventured out into the hallway. He heard raised voices as he made his way to the living room. Turning the corner, he found Sherlock and Harry on opposite sides of the coffee table. A Monopoly board was laid out between them, surrounded by scattered piles of money and cards. Immediately, his sympathies went out to Sherlock. Everyone in their household knew not to agree to play board games with Harry. He could see that not only did Harry immediately take advantage of a fresh, innocent face, but that Sherlock had walked right into her trap.

Harry was standing bent over the coffee table, one hand slammed onto the surface, and the other pointing in Sherlock’s face. And Sherlock, it seemed, had taken the bait, although he remained seated with his hands steepled calmly under his chin.

“You didn’t even NEED Whitehall! You bought that just to stop me from getting all three!”

“That’s called _ strategy _ , Miss Watson, and it’s perfectly within the rules, unlike you stealing money from Free Parking.”

“ _ What?! _ You didn’t care about the rules when you said you didn’t have to pay to get out of jail because you broke yourself out!”

“Well then the rules are WRONG!”

“ _ CHEATER!!” _

“Fine. FINE! I’ll give you Whitehall in return for Bond and Regent.”

“That’s completely unfair and you know it.”

“Just Regent then.”

“Still not the same.”

“You can build more than me, so it balances out.”

“Fine.”

John watched them exchange cards from the wall, shaking his head to himself with a small grin tugging at his lips. Harry had found her perfect game partner and he found that he now couldn’t sympathize with either of them.  He pushed off the wall and made his way over.

“Ah, John,” Sherlock greeted, passing the dice over to Harry. He settled himself on one unoccupied side of the table.

“Where the heck have you been?” Harry asked, rolling a five and a three.

“Huh?”

“I woke up and you weren’t in my room anymore, but you also weren’t anywhere else in the flat.”

“Oh, uh . . .” John rubbed the back of his neck and craned his head to the board, pretending to be incredibly invested in where her piece would land.

“I, um . . . went for a morning run,” he improvised, mentally smacking himself as he said it.

“In your pajamas?”

“. . . yes.”

He heard Sherlock snicker from where he was sitting, and reached over to pinch his thigh under the table.

“Ow!”

“Shut it.”

Harry, meanwhile, was completely oblivious to their exchange, and seemed to have dropped the issue as she landed on King’s Cross.

“Do you want us to put this away and get something all three of us can do? Sherlock and I can just finish later.”

“Getting nervous, Harriet?” Sherlock asked. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Oh, no. You two keep playing. I have absolutely no desire to be a part of this.”

He watched them play a few more fairly civil rounds before he heard his mum’s voice from the other side of the flat, sounding awfully distressed. He lifted himself from the floor made his way to where she sat her husband’s old desk. Various forms and documents lay scattered about the surface. She slammed the phone down in frustration and placed her head in her palms. John approached and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Is there anything I can help with?” he asked cautiously. She shook her head without lifting her face.

“Just trying to sort out Todd’s finances. Re-budget. That sort of thing.” A moment of silence passed between them before she spoke again. “I don’t know how we’re going to do it, John,” she said.

He nodded in understanding. While his dad had always been the primary earner for their family, his mum taught piano lessons at their church as a small, extra source of income. But of course, giving lessons alone would not be enough to provide for them all.

“You’ll have support,” he said. “And no one would blame you for increasing your fee, at least until you find a second job. Harry can help out once I’m gone, too. Babysitting, odd jobs, you know.”

She remained still, and seemingly unconvinced. He gave her shoulder a small squeeze. Then suddenly, she bolted up straight. Seeing her face clearly for the first time that morning, John noticed she looked like she hadn’t slept all night. Her hair was frazzled and falling out of its braid, and the skin under her eyes was dark and baggy.

“I haven’t fixed lunch for the three of you!” she said, and made to launch towards the kitchen. John held her firmly by the shoulders, keeping her in her seat.

“No. You stay here and do what you need to do. How about I take Harry and Sherlock out? We’ll grab lunch somewhere and be out of your hair for the afternoon. Would that help?”

A look of immense relief flooded her face as she relaxed into the chair and squeezed John’s hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, John. Just be back for dinner, alright?”

“Of course.”

**********

Fifteen minutes later, Sherlock, John, Harry, and Clara were having lunch in a nearby cafe. Harry had argued that it was only fair if she could bring a friend on their outing, too.   

Clara and Harry had known each other for quite a few years. John had met her briefly before, but had never spent a substantial amount of time with her before now. If he was being entirely honest with himself, he wasn’t too impressed with what he was seeing so far. She seemed secretive in nature, always trying to have sneaky side conversations with Harry instead of speaking openly to the group, exchanging little glances with her that suggested they knew something he and Sherlock didn’t. She also suggested more than once that she had snuck alcohol from her dad’s wine cabinet before. John was concerned that she might pressure Harry into drinking at such a young age as well, if she was so proud of the fact that she’d done it.

But on the other hand, John had never seen Harry look at someone with that much adoration before. Her smiles to Clara lit up her whole face, and she occasionally seemed almost flustered when speaking to her. Harry Watson was many things, but shy was not one of them. John would have thought it was kind of cute if his protective, brotherly instincts hadn’t been kicking in. He decided he’d let them be for now. As long as she looked this happy and stayed safe, there was no need for him to intervene.

After lunch, the four of them walked through some shops for a little bit.  Sherlock had them stop at a small bookshop and raced to a shelf in the window. He pulled a book off the display and began fanning through attentively. John strolled up to him and caught a glance at the cover. He didn’t see the title, but he saw a neat graphic of a giant atom, with its orbiting electrons made to look like the planets rotating around the sun. He chuckled fondly at Sherlock’s intrigued gaze, and how his nose was practically touching the pages as he flipped through them.

He stood there with him for a while, waiting patiently while Sherlock had his fill of the book. He kept a vague eye out for Harry, who was also wandering the shop while Clara kept pulling her arm and gesturing somewhere out the window. With a pinch of disappointment, he saw Harry give in and reluctantly put down the book she had been looking at. She came up to him a moment later with Clara trailing behind her, looking triumphant.

“Hey John, can Clara and I go down the street to the record shop?” she asked.

He looked between the two of them.

“If you really want to, I guess. Sherlock and I probably won’t be here much longer though,” he said, looking to where Sherlock was standing at the checkout line, still buried nose deep in the book. “Just make sure you’re home for dinner,” he said, pointedly making sure there was no invitation in his voice for Clara to join.

“Thanks, John!” she exclaimed, and the two of them happily left the shop.

A moment later, Sherlock strolled up to him with a bright spring in his step, his lips split in a radiate grin while he held his brand new book in a plastic bag. John couldn’t resist smiling back at the utter glow of joy on his face. He took his hand, lacing their fingers together, and led him out of the shop.

**********

Some hours later, they found themselves sitting together on a park bench. They had spent several hours after lunch wandering London by themselves, window shopping and stopping for the occasional snack.  Finally, John had stated that he wanted to stop and sit somewhere. Sherlock must have been able to sense his intentions, because suddenly his smile had gone tight, and his voice strained. Yet for the past several minutes, all they had done was stare idly out into the park, watching families stroll by with their dogs and prams, children playing in the open grass, and people sitting on spread out blankets.

“How do you think they resist it?” Sherlock piped up suddenly.

“Resist what?”

“The urge to chase after every bird and stray ball in the park?”

“You’re talking about the dogs?”

“Of course I’m talking about the dogs,” he replied, as if John had just asked if the sky was blue.

“They’re probably trained. Or . . . you know, on leashes.”

“Not all of them.”

The two of them drifted into a somewhat strained silence once more. Finally, John released a defeated sigh and reached over to take Sherlock’s hand into his.

Sherlock let out a similar, resigned sigh of his own. “Is it time now?” he asked softly.

_ Time to talk, _ is what he knew he meant. He had been referring to all the times in the past that it had been “just not the right time.” No more.

“Yes,” he said.

Sherlock’s fingers closed around his hand. “Alright then.” Another beat of silence passed, neither knowing where to begin. “I didn’t mean what I said before,” he finally started. “Back in Sussex before you left. I was just afraid you’d eventually leave me. Well, I  _ knew _ you’d eventually leave. And I didn’t want to get hurt.”

“I know. It’s alright.” Some more silence passed, where John idly stroked his thumb over the back of Sherlock’s hand while they watched a child play fetch with his dog across the lawn. He didn’t need Sherlock to explain himself further. He had traveled here to be with him in his moment of need. He had provided every bit of comfort he could possibly offer. Even back in Sussex, despite what his parting words had been, he had always attended to his needs with a certain level of care that just didn’t come from only a “summer fling.”

“Look, Sherlock. I know it would be highly impractical. I’m leaving soon. You’re going to uni. We’ll be spending long amounts of time apart. We haven’t known each other very long and don’t have much of a foundation for a long distance relationship. But,” he paused suddenly. His stomach was swarming with a mass of frenzied butterflies, now that the moment had finally come.

“But,” he continued. “If you’re willing . . . I’m all in this.” Sherlock remained still as a statue beside him, but beneath his fingers, he could feel the pulse in his wrist gradually picking up. 

“Sherlock, these weeks I’ve known you have been some of best in my life,” he continued, growing braver by the moment. “Knowing you has just . . . I feel like I’ve found a missing part of me. Something that’s always meant to be there and I . . .” He faltered again, opening and closing his mouth as he searched for the words. “I just . . . I want to try Sherlock. This. Between us. I want to make it real.”

He closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment to recompose. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, but the nervous swarms in his stomach had fluttered away. The words were out, and the ball was in Sherlock’s court now.

Some moments passed, and John realized Sherlock still hadn’t spoken. He turned to look at him and found Sherlock facing forward, his eyes averted and his lips tightly pursed. He felt a resounding pang in his chest at the skeptical look written across Sherlock’s face. For a moment, a horrible, heavy weight drifted into him. Did Sherlock not feel the same? He quickly shook the thought away, knowing it contradicted every action he had seen from him.

“Sherlock, what’s wrong?” he asked, shifting on the bench to face him a bit more.

“John, I . . . I know you feel this way now, but,” he paused and swallowed thickly. “What about in a year from now? In two? Five?”

John’s heart shattered briefly knowing that the mere idea of him feeling differently in due time had planted itself in Sherlock’s mind. He scooted off the bench and crouched on the ground in front of Sherlock, placing a hand on his knee and leaning in.

“Hey, listen to me. In a year, I’ll be abroad in Afghanistan, writing to you every spare moment I get, and anxiously waiting for your replies. In five years, I’ll hopefully be getting my certification in army medicine and you’ll have graduated at the top of your class in Oxford. And we’ll be counting down the days when we can see each other again.”

Sherlock huffed out a weak laugh. John watched him trying to resist the grin tugging at the corners of his lips. Sherlock turned his head away slightly as he blinked away some pooling moisture in his eyes.

John took his chin and guided his face back towards him. “And when I come back – which I  _ will _ , don’t look like that – you and I can find a place and start our lives fresh. Together.”

Sherlock’s eyes were lowered towards the ground. His bottom lip was pinched between his teeth, and for a moment, John was worried that this was not a future Sherlock wished for at all.

“Is . . . is that something you would want? To stay together after I come back?” Sherlock pinched his eyes closed and sighed through his nose, and although John’s heart was crumbing inside him with each passing second by now, he took one last stab. 

“That’s what I want. I want to spend my life with someone. Grow old and crabby together. I want that person to be you.” He swiped his thumbs tenderly over his cheekbones and lowered his voice.

“Sherlock, I love you.” The words seemed to have slipped out on their own. He huffed out a wet laugh himself as the tiniest bit of moisture leaked out from Sherlock’s pinched eyes. “I am so in love with you.”

Sherlock shook his head between John’s palms. “No, you’re not. You just think that right now.” The words were wobbly and unclear, and if John hadn’t been mere inches from his face, he likely wouldn’t have heard. He wiped his thumb over the wet spot right under his eye.

“Yes, I am. I love you so much.” Now that the words were out, it was as if a dam had broken. “I want a future where I can tell you that every single night, right in your ear when I’m kissing you goodnight. I want to wake up by your side every morning. I want to cook you breakfast. I want to fight with you and make up and watch crap telly on our couch together. I want it all, Sherlock. All of it.”

Sherlock had at least opened his eyes now, and was drinking in his words as if they were a lifeline.

“I love you, Sherlock,” he repeated, when he still got no response. He hesitated for a moment before asking, with crippling fear rising inside him, “Do you . . . love me?” 

The answer was just a hair’s width of a whisper, just a breath that could have passed for a mere whistle in the wind. But to John, it rang loud and clear, carrying the weight of his entire future: “Yes.”

Relief flooded him, as well as a warmth, hope, and reassurance different from any of the giddy happiness he had felt with Sherlock before. 

“So what’s holding you back?” he asked quietly.

“You’re leaving.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to uni.”

“Yes.”

“We won’t see each other. For a very long time.”

“Then so be it.”

“Anything could happen.”

“I promise I’ll come right back home to you. I will.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can’t. But we’ve just gotta have faith on this one, okay? We’ve got to try.”

Sherlock nodded, but John could tell that not all was at peace in his watery, aquamarine eyes

“Are you worried I’ll change my mind while we’re apart? Or meet someone else?”

Sherlock averted his gaze again, but John could tell that that was exactly what was on his mind. His eyes darted around for a moment. He could practically see the calculations flying in his head, being fuzzed and muddled with emotions and conflicting thoughts. Finally, his eyes cleared, and his face visibly relaxed.

“No.”

John smiled. “Then it’s settled then. You’re stuck with me.” He rose from the ground enough to wrap his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders and envelope his mouth in a kiss.

When he pulled back, grinning from ear to ear and filled to the brim with untainted joy, Sherlock let out a choked laugh. “I suppose so.” Their lips closed around each other’s again, and John halfway rose up onto the bench, bracing one knee next to his thigh and leaning into him.

“How often will you get to visit home?” Sherlock asked between kisses.

“Don’t know,” he mumbled.

Sherlock let out an unsatisfied hum. “If I don’t like your amount of leave days, I might have to enlist, too.”

John had to pull back to release an uncontainable snicker. “You’d never do it,” he laughed. “You’d have to cut off all this gorgeous, sexy hair,” he said, running his hands through the thick locks in worship.

“But would you still love me without the hair?” Sherlock asked, tugging him back down for another kiss.

“Of course, you stupid git.” Just as their lips were about to meet again, a sudden voice interrupted.

“John! Sherl-!”

The greeting was cut off nearly before it began. John pulled back, but remained braced above Sherlock with one knee on the park bench. Harry stood behind the bench, her widened eyes slowly travelling back and forth between the two of them as realization dawned ever so slowly.

Finally, her mouth parted into a wide circle. “Ohhhhhh. . .”

“For god’s sake, Harry!” exclaimed John. “Learn to announce yourself!”

**********

They walked back to the flat with Harry, who the whole time was sneaking cheeky glances to John, telling him he’d never hear the end of this.

Back at the flat, Sherlock was ushered over to the desk almost as soon as they walked in. His mum was on the phone for him. While he excused himself to take the call, John retreated to his room.

He stopped in his tracks almost as soon as he’d stepped in, and a smile slowly stretched across his face. The drawings he’d left behind in Sussex were laid out on his bed. He sat on the blankets and took them in hand, reminiscing in the memories behind each one. He had no idea when Sherlock had had the time to lay these out. He remembered them being together all morning.

As he ran his fingers down the sharp cheekbone on the page, a particular angle and lighting that had been hard to capture, he realized what Sherlock’s mum was probably speaking to him about. He sighed in disappointment and set the drawing down in his lap, trying his best to be grateful that this time, at least, he’d have the chance to properly say good-bye.

He lifted off the bed and exited his room. Sherlock was no longer at the desk. As he made his way down the hallway, he picked up Harry’s voice from the kitchen.

“And that’s why Charlie isn’t going to ask Cecelia to the dance anymore. Which I think is a good choice on his part, although Cecelia will be disappointed. But it shouldn’t matter too much to her because Brady likes her and I heard they hung out a few times over spring break.”

He smiled to himself and vowed to do his best to never leave Sherlock alone with Harry again. They were sitting at the table, where his mum had spread out a platter of chicken and a few sides.

John settled into his place across from Sherlock and caught his eye.

“Are you leaving?” he asked.

Sherlock nodded gravely. The comforting, slight upturn of lips did nothing to soften the blow. “She just wanted to know how much longer I’d be here, but I got the message.”

“You’re more than welcome to stay another night and leave in the morning, Sherlock,” Mrs. Watson said as she sat down.

“Thank you, Mrs. Watson, but I can’t ask you to entertain me for longer than necessary when you have so much on your plate already. I’ve already agreed for her to send the driver at 7.”

John looked at the clock on the oven. It was 5:10. They had less than two hours left together. For the first time, he began to feel nauseous at the prospect of spending so much time apart from Sherlock. All that talk in the park about how their relationship could persevere through anything . . . it all vanished with a simple glance at the clock, and he was left feeling numb and hollow inside.  

A comforting hand was placed on his knee from across the table, and he turned to meet Sherlock’s eyes again. His gaze was met with a look of determination and devotion; they would get through this together. He forced himself to grin back and push down the twisting, coiling nerves in his stomach. He placed his hand atop Sherlock’s on his knee and left it there for the remainder of dinner.

**********

Two hours later, John was placing Sherlock’s bag in the back of the car, arranging it so there would be a comfortable amount of room for his feet.

“Thank you for everything, Mrs. Watson. My parents send their best wishes,” he heard from behind him.

He turned to find Sherlock leaning down to peck a kiss on his mum’s cheek. Nearly as soon as he pulled away, Harry launched forward and wrapped him in a mighty bear hug. He stumbled backwards for a moment, shocked at the amount of momentum the young girl had, before hugging her back.

“Don’t lose touch,” she said. “Even after John leaves.”

“I won’t.”

At last she pulled back, and John and Sherlock were left facing each other on the pavement. They lingered for a moment, neither knowing what to say. Over Sherlock’s shoulder, John saw his mum usher Harry back to the doorway of their flat to give them some privacy.

“So here we are,” he said, once there was enough distance that they knew their conversation would be private.

He shuffled his feet and looked down. Sherlock did the same. He lifted his head and turned to watch the cars whizzing past them on the streets for a moment. The dim headlights passed over them, barely visible in the warm, blue glow of the early evening. The sun was not yet setting, but was covered by a blanket of grey clouds, diluting its beams of dim light. 

“You know I . . . can’t think of a single thing to say,” he said after a moment.

“No. Nor can I.”

He turned back to face Sherlock. They stood in silence for another few moments, turning their heads and gazes so that they were anywhere but on each other.

“When do you leave for uni?” he asked.

“Three weeks,” he said quietly. “And you? When do you ship out?”

John paused, swallowing down the roiling nausea still churning in his stomach. “Two weeks.”

Sherlock nodded stiffly, and John pursed his lips and looked down at his feet again. He didn’t know why every muscle in his body suddenly felt so tight. It’s not as if this would be the last time they’d see each other before they parted. They’d surely find time to visit at least once more. But it would be difficult, with all the preparations they’d both be busy with. They both knew that. And once he got on that plane . . .

“Sherlock, are we sure about this?” he whispered. His throat suddenly felt dry and coarse.

“I still am,” came Sherlock’s reply, his quiet voice full of certainty. “And . . . are you?” he asked with slightly less confidence.

“Yeah . . . Yes, I am.” 

After a moment, John shook his head free of the doubtful demons that had momentarily swarmed over his mind like a flock of vultures threatening to tear apart the one thing he knew would give him true happiness.

“Of course I am,” he added, and stepped forward to wrap his arms around Sherlock’s back and shoulders. Immediately, arms encircled his back in return. “I’m just scared, Sherlock,” he whispered into the dark curls covering his ear, once his face was safely hidden from the rest of the world.

“I am too,” he heard back. “But we can do this, right?” He realized Sherlock was legitimately asking for confirmation, not just offering him rhetorical comfort. He pulled back, darted his eyes between his for a moment, and swept in with an all-engulfing kiss. Sherlock’s arms squeezed tighter around his back, and for several moments, nothing in the world could have broken them apart. The kiss was a confirmation, a commitment, a vow. When they released, John pulled him back in for one last hug, as he tried to memorize his scent and touch.

“I’ll come see you off when you’re leaving,” came a whisper in his ear, the voice slightly wet. He nodded into his shoulder and squeezed once more before letting him go.

John blinked a few times and cleared his throat of the wetness that had gathered there. With one last tight smile, he stepped back, allowing Sherlock to climb into the waiting vehicle. He knew if he stood any nearer to him, he'd never let him go. 

The door closed behind him with a sealing thud. As it pulled off the curb and into the London traffic, John caught one last glimpse of Sherlock’s’ hand waving to him through the tinted window. And then he was gone.

His hand remained raised in farewell for several moments after the vehicle was out of sight. 

Up above, the clouds had cleared to reveal the bright flickers of the sun as it lowered further towards the horizon. A new feeling had settled over John. No longer were his insides churning with dread and fear. Instead, he felt something he had never felt before in his life, not to this extent, and never with this much certainty: 

Peace. Complete inner peace with what was yet to come, and a renewed reason to live. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one chapter left guys! yay!
> 
> A few notes: 1) this chapter is unbetaed 2) I did my best to research financial aid programs in the UK for those in the army and all that stuff, and it was really difficult to find consistent information. I did my best with the information I found, but I know the timeline I've set up probably still isn't 100% perfect. So please be kind and ignore any faults you may find. If it bothers you, I'm sorry, I did my best. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's stuck with this story for this long! I appreciate ya'll <3


	12. Epilogue

***** SHERLOCK *****

 

It had been 5 years and 286 days since John shipped out to Afghanistan. And one year, seven months, and 14 days since his last visit. That’s one year, seven months, and 14 days too long since Sherlock had last seen him. What made it worse was that the days until his next leave were still uncertain. With each passing day, Sherlock anxiously awaited the arrival of the next letter, which could possibly contain an update.

He had a box in his bedroom where he stored every single letter John had written him. Well,  _ their _ bedroom. But of course, it wouldn’t be “their” bedroom until John came home and saw the new place.

Sherlock was in the last stages of moving into 221B Baker Street, a nice little flat in London he’d rented by cashing in a favor from the landlady, Mrs. Hudson.  Of course, for him, the “last stages” meant doing the absolute minimum unpacking to make the place livable, and leaving the rest for John to do whenever he came home.

Stacks of empty boxes were piled up in the corner by the entrance. Mrs. Hudson gave him hell about it every time she brought him his morning tea. Another collection of half-empty boxes were hoarded by the threshold between the kitchen and living room. He had created a small aisle between the stacks in order to move between the two settings. The unopened boxes were all shoved under the desk by the window. They contained the stupid, pointless things that he didn’t want or need, but knew John would insist on having, like dishes and cleaning supplies.

Besides the vaguely organized clutter, Sherlock felt like he had done a decent job of moving himself in. He had set up all appliances essential for his experiments, like the fridge and microwave. The furniture was all in place. He had even picked out a nice red, cushioned chair for John, which complemented his own sitting right across from it.

He hoped John would like the flat. He had really tried to pick a place that they would both feel at home in. Of course, John had always said that any place they were together was his home. The same rang true for him, but they still needed a place that fit them both, in an aesthetic and practical sense.

When he first walked into 221B, something had just clicked inside him, like he had found the place he was always meant to be in. Plus, given the location of the flat, it would be easier to visit his parents, and to see Mrs. Watson and Harriet.

So Sherlock had signed the lease without telling John, and just hoped he would like the surprise upon returning home. Harriet had sworn herself to secrecy, and was dying to see the new place. They hadn’t worked out a good time for a visit yet. But to be honest, dates and schedules were least of Sherlock’s concerns. He was slightly worried that if she came over, she might get over excited and spill the beans in her next letter to John.

Sherlock strode over to the fireplace, framed to perfection between his and John’s beautifully mismatched chairs, and placed the final touch on the mantelpiece: John’s glow-in-the-dark skull from the carnival they had attended all those years ago. On the opposite end was his own skull, Billy, which often kept him company in John’s absence.

A small smile played at his lips as he looked across the mantelpiece at all the memories he had collected there, mostly in photographs. Next to Billy was a picture of Harriet at her graduation, with her lightened blonde hair freshly cropped short, and a new tattoo on the side of her neck. Jumping onto her back was a pretty girl with braided, brown hair, also wearing a cap and gown.

Three years ago, Clara had developed a bad drinking habit, and their relationship had become somewhat toxic as a result. Harriet had tried multiple times to help her, but eventually ended the relationship, wanting to save herself from falling into a similar fate. She met Jordan the next year, and since then, the two of them had been in one of the healthiest, most loving relationships Sherlock had ever seen. Jordan had her arms wrapped around Harry from behind in the picture. Both had radiant smiles plastered onto their faces, ready to begin the next phases in their lives.

Beside that picture was one from when John had visited home for the first time. It featured the two of them at Mrs. Watson’s new flat, standing on either side of her. Mrs. Watson had struggled financially for a while after her husband’s death, but she kept up with the piano lessons as much as she could. Eventually, she was offered a position to teach professionally at a local music school. She thrived at her new job and was eventually able to purchase a new, upgraded flat, with room for all of them to visit plus a spare.

Next to that photograph was a lovely picture of Sherlock standing between Greg and Molly with one arm around each of them. John had been unable to attend the wedding, but Sherlock had enclosed a copy of this photograph in his letter shortly after. Standing tall and proud on Sherlock’s right was Greg, in his sharply tailored, navy blue suit, with a white boutonniere pinned to his chest. On the other side was Molly, the beautiful bride donned in an ivory, summer gown. Her brown hair was braided and done up with pastel-colored flowers and golden pins to match the lace trim on her dress. 

And lastly, next to the plastic skull was a picture from three Christmases ago, when the stars had aligned for John and his family to spend the holidays at the manor with him and his parents. In the picture, his parents and John’s mum sat on the couch together, while he, John, and Harriet stood behind them. Sherlock grinned remembering how John had pinched his elbow moments before the photograph was taken, reminding him to smile. Sherlock had wanted nothing more in that moment than to cross his arms and pout, after John had practically wrestled the hideous maroon and green jumper onto him. But he listened for the sake of the photograph and had forced a pained grimace of a smile onto his face.

There was a separate picture taken from that same night - one that Sherlock kept on his nightstand so he could reminisce it in private. It had been taken once Sherlock had gotten used to the jumper, however ugly it might have been, and had allowed John to curl up around him from behind, wearing a similar hideous jumper. John had turned his face until their lips met in a brief kiss, and stretched his hand out in front of them to take a picture. It was one of Sherlock’s favorite pictures in the whole world, and somehow, he felt strangely protective of it, like no one should ever be able to see such a treasured moment except the two of them.

He picked up the family photograph and stroked along the frame fondly, wondering when would be the next time all of them could come together like that again. Just as he set it down, a knock came at the front door, interrupting his reminiscence. He rolled his eyes and promptly ignored it. Mrs. Hudson usually acted as a filter for him, deciding which visitors were worthy enough to be allowed upstairs, but she was out for the weekend. There was no one to shoo this one away, to his great annoyance.

The knock came again, and based on the rapid succession and volume of each hit, Sherlock deduced that this person would not leave until they were forced to. With a great huff of irritation, he leapt across the room, dodging boxes along the way, and trudged downstairs to the door.

He pulled it open, just as another series of knocks had begun, only to have his heart stop short and every bit of breath knocked out of him in a split second.

Standing before him, smiling coyly with a duffel bag at his feet, holding a walking cane in one hand and a bouquet of red roses in another –

Sherlock’s body launched forward before his mind had even fully processed the turn of events. He swept up the smaller man into his arms, burying his face into the collar of his jacket. He didn’t even register the clutter of the cane and bouquet falling to the floor as two strong arms wrapped around his back in return.

 

***** JOHN *****

The first thing John did was inhale a lungful of the spicy cologne and shampoo that had come to mean “home” to him. Sherlock had instantly wrapped around him like an octopus, which was exactly the reaction he had expected. And he was holding onto him just as tightly in return, not wanting a single breach of space between their bodies. Sherlock was mumbling something into his shoulder . . . something about missing him, but John couldn’t bring himself to speak just yet. Instead, he removed one arm from his back and cradled the back of Sherlock’s head, turning to plant a kiss onto his temple.

They spent a fraction of an eternity in each other’s arms, clinging and drowning in their embrace, but eventually, Sherlock was the one to pull back first. He gripped his arms in his massive hands, and frantically searched his eyes for answers to the questions that had flooded his brain.

“I got shot,” John said simply, answering the most obvious one right up front.  “I’ve been invalided home.” It was no surprise when Sherlock’s eyes immediately darted down to his shoulder and not his leg, despite the fact that he had arrived with a cane.

Speaking of his cane, the moment the thought of it entered his mind again, a searing pain shot through his leg. He winced in agony, and Sherlock swooped down to pick it up for him without a word. He accepted it back into his hands with a stiff nod of gratitude, and allowed himself to be wrapped into a hug once more.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Sherlock muttered. John hugged him back with his free arm.

“I know. I’m here,” he whispered back. “Hey . . . hey, are you crying?” he asked, when he felt slight tremors running through his spine.

“I worried about you every single day,” came a mumble, followed by an audible sniff. 

“I know. I’m here now. I’m safe,” he said, cradling his head once more. Sherlock nodded into his shoulder and released him. He bent down to pick up the duffel bag and fallen bouquet of roses, swiping a palm across his eyes as he did.

“I’m the one who should have gotten you flowers when you returned home,” he said.

“Don’t be silly. You didn’t know I was coming.”

John leaned his weight onto the cane and stepped into the flat. As soon as he was inside, his eyes panned up the daunting flight of stairs before him. He set his jaw in determination and lifted his leg onto the first one. Slowly but surely, he hobbled up the stairs, trying to keep his labored breaths to a minimum. Sherlock trailed patiently behind him, and (to his slight annoyance) occasionally held his arms out as if preparing to support him.

At the top of the stairs, Sherlock opened the door and welcomed him into their new home. John stopped in the threshold to take in the view. It was cluttered and messy, but . . . homey. There was a certain serenity to the chaos, one that made him instantly feel like he’d come home, even though he’d never stepped foot into this place before. His gaze was drawn to the two chairs set before the fireplace, and instantly, he knew the red one was his.

He looked from the jumbled bookshelves to the dusty curtains, from the patterned living room wallpaper to the pale blue in the kitchen. He made another full scan before finally looking back to Sherlock, who had dropped his bags at his feet and was nervously wringing his wrists beside him.

“So, um. What do you think?” Before he could answer, Sherlock rambled onward. “I know we agreed to pick out a place together once you came back, but staying back at my Oxford flat just wasn’t working out for me anymore. As I told you, after graduation I started assisting Scotland Yard when they are out of their depths. And since that is always, the commute to London was getting to be too difficult, so I cashed in a favor with Mrs. Hudson, the landlady. She took me to see this place, and I just . . . it was perfect, John. I had to get it before it sold. I hope you understand.”

“It’s perfect,” John said, and he meant it. He scanned the room again, imagining spending late nights at the desk, with only his laptop and a cup of coffee. Movie nights with Chinese takeout on the dark green couch. Sitting at the kitchen table with the paper, drinking his morning tea in his bathrobe. He could envision it so easily, it was as if it had already happened.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” Sherlock said, visibly relieved that he was pleased with the new flat. “After you returned and settled in, I wanted to take you out for lunch but bring you here instead. How did you even find out I was here?”

“I stopped to see mum and Harry first. I called a few days ago, so they were expecting me already, and knew not to say anything to you. I spent the day with them and dropped my stuff off. Then Harry told me you had bought a flat here.”

Sherlock chuckled. “I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist. Especially not to your face.”

“She was doing pretty well, actually. I had to work for it. But when I told her I was planning on surprising you, she decided my surprise was better than yours.”

“And she was right.”

John leaned down to pick up his bag. Most of his possessions were still at his mum’s flat, not that he had many. The duffel only contained overnight stuff. Still, as soon as he tried to lift it, searing agony jolted through the entire left side of his torso. He hissed and lowered it back down. Instantly, Sherlock swooped in.

“Let me help you with that.”

“No.”

“Just let me-”

“ _ I’ve got it, _ Sherlock _.” _

“John, your shoulder-”

“ _ DAMN my shoulder!” _

Sherlock flinched backwards, releasing his grip on the handle.

“Shit,” John breathed. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Sherlock looked at him oddly, no longer hurt, but instead, puzzled. And instantly, John was able to “deduce” the reason. He knew Afghanistan had changed him. Sherlock had already seen and dealt with bits of that during his previous visits. He had lost friends and comrades, witnessed the absolute worst in humanity, as well as some of the best, albeit in horribly unfortunate circumstances. There were things he’d experienced that he was only able to discuss with his loved ones after months of digestion. And there were other things he knew he’d never speak a word of as long as he lived. More often than not, those were the things that appeared in his nightmares - which he had so far successfully hidden from Sherlock, but knew he could no longer avoid that they’d be living together. 

There had been nights when he’d honestly wondered if death would be preferable to what he was going through and what was happening all around him. And honestly, the thought of Sherlock, that sweet beckoning light at the end of the tunnel, was often the only thing that kept him going in those trying times. Without Sherlock, he often felt like he’d have returned home as an empty, broken shell of a human being, wandering aimlessly in London with no sense of purpose or belonging.

He knew that Sherlock never expected him to return from his service unchanged. But pre-injury John and post-injury John were two entirely different people. For the first few days of his recovery, he had hoped the swelling darkness, cynicism, and ever-expanding feelings of mortality in him would be temporary. And although they had simmered down significantly, he now intrinsically knew that they would never truly be gone. They were a part of who he was now.

He was an army doctor, wounded and invalided. All of those things at once.

And now, looking into Sherlock’s questioning eyes, he fleetingly wondered if Sherlock could come to love and accept this new John. The John he had fallen in love with was still inside him, buried deep down . . . somewhere. But it would take time and heaping amounts of patience to coax him out again, if that ever even happened.  

John sighed, and searched the eyes of the man who had pulled him through his worst living nightmare, and who he knew would pull him through the ones that continued to haunt him as well. Sherlock’s puzzled expression softened, as did his eyes. The moment had passed. 

“Come,” Sherlock said, reaching down to take the bag. This time, John allowed him, while trying to relax the fist that had clenched up at his side. “Let me take you to our bedroom.”

“Mm, I like the sound of that.” 

“And there’s another one upstairs. For Harriet, if she visits from uni. Or anyone else.”

Sherlock leapt leapt over the boxes on the way to the kitchen and squeezed through the aisle he had created, waiting patiently for John to maneuver through with his cane. When it came time to step over one, he offered out his arm for support, and John took it with ease.

“This is all getting cleaned out tomorrow. And I’m not helping you.”

“Of course you won’t.”

“I mean it, Sherlock.”

Once he had gotten through the little obstacle course, he followed him down the hallway.

The bedroom contained old but charming furniture. To the left of the window was a poster with the labeled parts of a bee. A small bookshelf sat against the far wall, stuffed with scientific and medical texts. The beating, afternoon sunlight was filtered in through pale, white curtains, brightening the room from the otherwise dull colors. On a chair in the corner was a large white box with the lid propped open.

John turned to the left and saw the bed. The side closest to the door was clearly Sherlock’s, given that there was a book on the classification of bees on the nightstand, as well as the purple teddy bear he had won him at the carnival all those years ago. There was also a framed picture of the two of them kissing, from the only Christmas they had spent together since he left.

On the opposite side, he saw that his own nightstand had already been set up, with a bedside lamp and everything.

“Do you like it?”

“I do. It’s perfect, love.”

He turned and cupped Sherlock’s cheek in the doorway, and leaned in to place a soft kiss onto his lips. Sherlock sighed in satisfaction, almost forgetting to kiss him back until he was about to pull away.

“Mm, have I not kissed you yet since coming home?” John asked, with his lips still brushing against the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t believe you have.”

“Well, let’s fix that then.” He leaned in to kiss again, walking backwards into the bedroom and pulling Sherlock along by his shirt. They broke apart and tilted their heads at the same time, causing their noses to bump. Sherlock pulled back and blinked in shock while John chuckled and rubbed his nose.

“Looks like we’re a bit out of practice.”

He kissed him again, although it was made difficult with the massive grin stretching his lips. He continued to walk the two of them into the room until the backs of his knees hit the bedside. He lowered himself onto it, never breaking the contact of their lips. Sherlock braced a knee up onto the mattress, and began easing him backwards, gently so as to not disturb his injury.

The moment John’s lower back made contact with the bed, he felt a dull stab in his side. He winced and lifted back up. Immediately, Sherlock’s eyes flew to his shoulder in guilt and panic.

“John! Are you – Did I-”

“It’s not you, love, it’s just . . .” John removed his jacket, rubbing his lower back. He knew exactly what he had just laid on, and had, in fact, forgotten all about the velvety box tucked safely in his inside pocket. He tried to casually place the jacket aside, hoping Sherlock would not think anything of it, but he knew it was a lost cause before he even attempted it.

Sherlock sat beside him on the bed and snatched the bundle out of his arms, seemingly offended at the padded cloth for hurting him. John sighed in defeat and watched his large hands dive inside and dig around for the offending object. This was not how he planned for this to go, but nothing in his life had ever really gone exactly to plan.

Sherlock’s hand enclosed around the box and pulled it out. Instantly, he gasped and jerked back so violently, John was shocked he didn’t drop it. For several long moments, he sat there, staring blankly at the small, maroon, velvet-covered box laying patiently atop his flattened palm.

John leaned back onto his hands, grinning privately as he looked back and forth between the box and Sherlock’s rapidly blinking eyelashes. So many emotions seemed to cross his stunned face in a matter of seconds: shock of course, uncertainty, and what seemed like a hint of regret for snatching the jacket from him and digging the box out.

At last, he glanced up and met John’s eye, partially demonstrating his eagerness and partially apologizing for ruining his chance to present the box to him in his own way. John’s lip twitched up even further. He nodded his head slowly, giving his permission.

Sherlock smiled back and, very slowly, lifted his other hand to open the top of the box. The moment he laid eyes on what was inside, he gasped again and placed his hand over his mouth. His bulging eyes remained glued to what John knew was the little golden band he had picked out, textured like honeycomb, and silvery black on the inside.

He hadn’t decided yet how he had wanted to do it. There were so many possibilities he’d considered: a candlelit dinner, the stables where they had had their first meaningful encounter, a family gathering with the presence of everyone they loved . . . In a way, he was somewhat grateful Sherlock had taken the problem out of his hands. He had feared that the longer he carried around that little box in his pocket, the more daunting the task would have become.

“Erm . . . may I?” he asked cautiously. Sherlock lifted his eyes back to him, his expression remaining slack. John shifted forward, took the box from his hand, and removed the ring from the little black slot. He lifted Sherlock’s limp hand and slid the ring onto his fourth finger. 

“Look at that,” he breathed in admiration before enclosing the hand between both of his own.

“I was going to plan it better,” he started with a sigh. “I wanted to woo you, but you just had to punish whatever little trinket in my pocket had caused me pain, didn’t you?” Sherlock choked out a wet laugh and visibly relaxed somewhat. His eyes remained fixed on the spot where his ringed finger was tucked safely between John’s hands.

“Look, Sherlock. After I got shot, I had some dark days. I mean, every day over there was dark and terrible in some way, but once I had stared death in the eyes and come that close to losing it all . . . I entered a whole new realm. I questioned my identity, as a soldier and as a human being worth living. It was the most awful, unpleasant time of my entire life. It made me rethink every factor of my life, and its value and significance to me, and that included you. I thought back to the days where . . . I thought I couldn’t do it anymore. Where my mind was clouded so densely with all the death and violence around me that my subconscious went to some scary places late at night. I thought about the one thing that always kept me going . . . that kept me from ending it all. The one thing that kept coming to mind when I asked, before  _ and _ after getting shot, what was the point of it all? What was I still living for? Still fighting for? The answer was always you, Sherlock,” his voice raised in pitch and noticeably cracked on the last few words. He inhaled a few shaky breaths and cleared out the wetness gathering in his throat before continuing. 

“They flew me to a hospital in England where I was rechecked. The moment I was well enough to be discharged, I went straight to a shop to buy this.” He squeezed Sherlock’s hand between his own. “I knew what mattered most to me in this world, and that I didn’t want to risk coming that close to death again without having been married to you.”

Sherlock opened and closed his mouth a few times, his eyelashes fluttering rapidly. 

“So,” he continued, feeling his heart rate pick up. “William Sher-”

All of a sudden, Sherlock pulled his hand free of his grasp and nearly leapt off the bed. 

John was left with a slightly gaping mouth and eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He had anticipated many reactions upon having this discussion, but this was not one of them. He watched curiously as Sherlock strode over to the white box in the corner of the room. He pulled out several folded sheets of dirty, yellowed paper, which John recognized to be his letters. Eventually he found what he was looking for and came back to the bed. This time, instead of sitting beside him again, he knelt down on the ground and held out a little, black, leather box.

He opened it to reveal a golden band with two shiny, black lines running around the top and bottom, perfectly complementing the ring on his own finger. John’s heart beat escalated at the sight of it, placed so temptingly close to his fingertips.

“John Watson,” Sherlock began shakily. “Every moment spent with you has been the most fulfilled and pleasant moment of my life. Growing up, I knew only fear and isolation from my peers. Then you came into my life, and suddenly I was . . . happy. You were the friend I never had as well as the partner I never knew I needed. I never expected to have that. It was always something for others, but not for me. I never in a million years thought I would ever want to be someone’s husband. Or that anyone would want to be mine. And certainly not the bravest, and kindest, and wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing. John, I am a ridiculous man, redeemed only by your warmth and constancy in my life. And if you would do me the pleasure of accepting me as your lifetime partner, I would certainly be the happiest man in the world.”

John lowered his hand from his mouth, and did nothing to stop the second and third tears from streaming down his nose. He lifted himself off the bed and lowered down to the floor beside Sherlock.

“Sherlock, I am not the same man that you said goodbye to at the airport nearly six years ago,” he choked out. “I’ve been to hell and back. I’ve seen things that I’ll never be able to talk about. I’m broken, and it will take years for me to heal, if I ever fully do. I need you to know that before either of us agree to anything. It’s my greatest hope that one day you’ll come to love the man I’ve become, the same way you loved the man I was before.”

“John Watson,” Sherlock began hoarsely. “I already do.”

He removed the ring from the slot and slid it onto John’s finger. The weight of it felt natural, as if it had been missing all his life and his hand was now made whole by its presence. He placed his palm against Sherlock’s and laced their fingers together.

“Well, then,” he whispered. “It would be a privilege and an honor to marry you, Sherlock Holmes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yayyy all done, The End! Thanks to my beta Jessica @the-asexual-detective for helping me along the way with this <3
> 
> As I've said before, this fic was loosely inspired by Ed Sheeran's song [Hearts Don't Break Around Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20pAJPNaAyw) so give that a listen if you haven't yet. Just, you know, mentally switch the pronouns :)
> 
> Also feel free to come say hi to me on tumblr @one-thousand-splendid-stars!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's stuck with this story, whether you've been commenting along the way after each update, or you just binged it all in one night - I appreciate you reading this story so much and I hope you all enjoyed the journey as much as I have <33

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover] Hearts Don't Break Around Here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14313294) by [allsovacant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsovacant/pseuds/allsovacant)
  * [Hearts Don't Break Around Here — [Cover]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14602299) by [allsovacant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsovacant/pseuds/allsovacant)




End file.
